Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Lawson Products' (Nasdaq: LAWS) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Lawson Products is a North American distributor of products and services to the industrial, commercial, institutional and governmental maintenance, repair, and operations marketplace.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts thinks investors should stand pat on Lawson Products, unanimously rating the stock a hold. 
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.31 per share. Estimates range from $0.22 to $0.41.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see Lawson Products as a good bet, with 64.3% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community is split on the stock, with 48.6% Fools giving it an "outperform" rating and 51.4% an "underperform" rating. Fools are bullish on Lawson Products, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 22 posts in the past 30 days. Lawson Products' CAPS rating of two out of five stars is gloomier than the community sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

60.5%

55.6%

62.8%

57.7%

Operating Margin

4.5%

2.2%

9.6%

3.2%

Net Margin

2.4%

(0.9%)

3.8%

1.7%

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