Investors hope National Penn Bancshares (Nasdaq: NPBC) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by 2 cents in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, July 28. National Penn Bancshares is a bank holding company, which through its subsidiary, National Penn Bank, provides a diversified range of financial services.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on National Penn Bancshares with six of 10 analysts rating it hold. Analysts still rate the stock a Hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $91.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 4.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.11 per share. Estimates range from $0.06 to $0.13.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 90.9% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 89.3% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about National Penn Bancshares, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 40 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of National Penn Bancshares, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

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 net margins over the past four quarters. 

Quarter Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2
Net Margin 16.5% 7.3% 10.2% -2.8%

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