Watch Henry Schein's (Nasdaq: HSIC) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, August 2. Henry Schein is a distributor of healthcare products and services to office-based healthcare practitioners in the combined North American and European markets. 

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock, with eight analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Henry Schein better than competitor Patterson Companies 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 $2.01 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 8.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1 per share. Estimates range from $0.98 to $1.03.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 97.5% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars, with 90.9% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Henry Schein, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 40 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Henry Schein, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Henry Schein's profit has risen year over year by an average of 9.7%.

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

29.0%

28.4%

28.4%

29.5%

Operating Margin

6.4%

7.0%

7.3%

7.5%

Net Margin

3.9%

4.6%

4.6%

4.5%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Henry Schein 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.