Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that Corn Products International (NYSE: CPO) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings tomorrow. Corn Products International, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells a number of ingredients to a variety of food and industrial customers.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Corn Products International, with six of nine rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts don't like Corn Products International as much as competitor Darling International overall. Wall Street has warmed to the stock over the past three months, with analysts increasing their endorsement from hold to moderate buy.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.52 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 52% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.13 per share. Estimates range from $1 to $1.29.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 90.8% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 93.4% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on Corn Products International and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 107 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Corn Products International, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management
Corn Products International's profit has risen year over year by an average of 18.1%. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company boosted its gross margin by 5.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 55.7% while cost of sales rose 46.2% to $1.16 billion 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

20.4%

17.5%

16.8%

16.3%

Operating Margin

15.6%

7.3%

8.7%

7.6%

Net Margin

10.5%

3.7%

3.6%

3.7%

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

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