Veeco Instruments (Nasdaq: VECO) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, July 28. Veeco Instruments designs and manufactures enabling solutions for customers in the high brightness light emitting diode (HB-LED), solar, data storage, semiconductor, scientific research, and industrial markets.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on Veeco Instruments as eight analysts rate it as a buy and only two analysts rate it as a sell.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $274.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 8.5% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.34 per share. Estimates range from $1.30 to $1.38.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 96% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All Stars with 93.3% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Veeco Instruments and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 146 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Veeco Instruments, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Veeco Instruments upped its gross margin by 7.7 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 56% while cost of sales rose 34.9% to $125.3 million from a year earlier.

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

50.8%

50.9%

48.9%

45%

Operating Margin

31.3%

33.6%

33.1%

25.2%

Net Margin

20.7%

65.7%

31.1%

20.7%

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