Magellan Health Services (Nasdaq: MGLN) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday, July 29. Magellan Health Services is engaged in the specialty managed healthcare business.
What analysts say:
- Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with five analysts rating it as a buy, and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Magellan Health Services better than competitor Centene overall. Analysts still rate the stock a Moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
- Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $703.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 5.1% from the year-ago quarter.
- Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.86 per share. Estimates range from $0.83 to $0.89.
What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.6% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 86.8% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on Magellan Health Services, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 20 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Magellan Health Services, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.
Management:
Magellan Health Services' profit has risen year over year by an average of 36.7%. A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases.
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 | 10.2% | 7.7% | 30.4% | 10.1% |
| Operating Margin | 8.3% | 6% | 28.6% | 8.2% |
| Net Margin | 5% | 4.4% | 6% | 4.8% |
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