Newfield Exploration (NYSE: NFX) 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 Thursday. Newfield Exploration acquires and explores natural gas and crude oil properties in the U.S. and abroad.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with 17 analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Newfield Exploration better than competitor Stone Energy overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $702.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 56.4% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.16 per share. Estimates range from $1.00 to $1.31.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 98% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 95% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Newfield Exploration, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 93 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Newfield Exploration's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
The company's gross margin shrank by 7.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 38.6% while cost of sales rose 77.4% to $204 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

67.1%

69.9%

73.9%

76.2%

Operating Margin

32.2%

32.7%

30.9%

32.5%

Net Margin

35.3%

(3.1%)

4.2%

35.9%

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