Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that Amphenol (NYSE: APH) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Wednesday. Amphenol designs and produces electronic and fiber-optic connectors, interconnect systems, and coaxial and flat-ribbon cable.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Amphenol as a buy. But with 66.7% of analysts rating it a buy, Amphenol is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 70.3% buys. Analysts like Amphenol better than competitor Molex overall. Six out of 11 analysts rate Molex a buy compared with six of nine for Amphenol. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.01 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 6.5% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.78 per share. Estimates range from $0.76 to $0.80.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock with 98.8% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars with 95.7% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Amphenol, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 63 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Amphenol's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Amphenol's profit has risen year over year by an average of 40.8% over the past five 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

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

31.6%

32.3%

32.6%

32.7%

Operating Margin

21.1%

19.8%

20.1%

19.9%

Net Margin

14.5%

13.6%

13.8%

14.5%

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

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