Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Overseas Shipholding Group's (NYSE: OSG) earnings announcement, as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, August 2. Overseas Shipholding Group owns and operates a fleet of oceangoing vessels engaged in the transportation of liquid and dry bulk cargoes in the international market.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with six analysts rating it as a buy and only two rating it as a sell. Analysts like Overseas Shipholding Group better than competitor Frontline Ltd. (USA) overall. 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 $210.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 25.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $1.27 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $1.89 to a loss of $0.84.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 92% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars, with 93% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on Overseas Shipholding Group and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 129 posts in the past 30 days. Overseas Shipholding Group's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 9.4 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 2.3% while cost of sales rose 21.7% to $126.5 million 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

52.0%

49.0%

55.6%

57.8%

Operating Margin

(9.8%)

(22.0%)

(6.0%)

(7.1%)

Net Margin

(13.1%)

(23.8%)

(12.2%)

(13.3%)

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