Calavo Growers (Nasdaq: CVGW) 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 on Monday. Calavo Growers procures and markets avocados and other perishable commodities and prepares and distributes processed avocado products.

What analysts say:
 

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Calavo Growers, with three of four rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Calavo Growers' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $138.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 20.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.23 per share. Estimates range from $0.19 to $0.32.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.7% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 94.7% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Calavo Growers, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 44 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Calavo Growers' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Calavo Growers' profit has risen year over year by an average of 49.8% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by four percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 8.7% while cost of sales rose 13.7% to $109.3 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

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

7.9%

9.5%

13.3%

13.3%

Operating Margin

3.2%

4.0%

6.8%

8.5%

Net Margin

2.0%

2.5%

4.4%

5.2%

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