Halliburton Company Earnings Preview

Watch Halliburton Company's (NYSE: HAL) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, October 17. Halliburton provides oilfield technologies and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Halliburton Company, with 23 of 25 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Halliburton Company better than competitor National Oilwell Varco overall. While analysts still rate the stock a Moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $6.38 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 36.9% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 92 cents per share. Estimates range from 87 cents to 96 cents.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 95.7% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All Stars with 94.8% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Halliburton Company and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 900 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Halliburton Company's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Halliburton Company's profit has risen year over year by an average of more than twofold over the past five quarters. The company raised its gross margin by 2.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 35.3% while cost of sales rose 31.6% to $4.71 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.

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