Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that CONMED (Nasdaq: CNMD) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings tomorrow. Conmed is a technology company with an emphasis on surgical devices and equipment for minimally invasive procedures and monitoring.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on CONMED while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like CONMED better than competitor Teleflex overall. Two out of six analysts rate Teleflex a buy compared to two of four for CONMED. 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 $185.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 2.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.35 per share. Estimates range from $0.33 to $0.37.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 86.7% giving it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 60% give it an outperform rating. Fools are gung-ho about CONMED, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 27 posts in the past 30 days. The CAPS rating of four out of five stars for CONMED is far more upbeat than the community assessment.

Management
CONMED's profit has risen year over year by an average of more than threefold. A year-over-year revenue increase last quarter snaps a streak of two consecutive quarters of revenue declines. Revenue rose 4% in the first quarter and fell 3.4% in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year and 1.9% in the third quarter of the last fiscal year.

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

52.2%

49.4%

51.7%

51.7%

Operating Margin

9.4%

7.4%

8.8%

8.2%

Net Margin

4.9%

3.8%

5.1%

4.0%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on CONMED movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.