GATX (NYSE: GMT) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings tomorrow. GATX leases, operates, and manages long-lived, widely used assets in the rail, marine, and industrial equipment markets. It also invests in joint ventures that complement existing business activities.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts generally think investors should hang on to GATX, with half rating the stock a hold. GATX's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $312.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 6.1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.46 per share. Estimates range from $0.42 to $0.48.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 92.3% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 89.7% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on GATX, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 26 posts in the past 30 days. The bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars for GATX outpaces Fool enthusiasm for the company.

Management
GATX's profit has risen year over year by an average of 18.5%. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

60%

36.2%

54.1%

54.2%

Operating Margin

28.6%

19.0%

22.1%

22.5%

Net Margin

7.1%

6.2%

6.7%

7.3%

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

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