Veeco Instruments (Nasdaq: VECO) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Veeco Instruments designs and manufactures enabling solutions for customers in the HB-LED, solar, data storage, semiconductor, scientific research, and industrial markets.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Veeco Instruments with 12 of 19 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Veeco Instruments as much as competitor MEMC Electronic Materials overall. Five out of 19 analysts rate MEMC Electronic Materials a buy compared to four of 19 for Veeco Instruments. While analysts still rate the stock a Hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $255.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 7.8% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.14 per share. Estimates range from $0.96 to $1.28.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 93.4% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 93.4% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Veeco Instruments and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 157 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Veeco Instruments, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Veeco Instruments' profit has risen year over year by an average of 1918.8% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 7.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 4.7% while cost of sales rose 18.3% to $164.7 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

37.8%

50.8%

50.9%

48.9%

Operating Margin

8.9%

31.3%

33.6%

33.1%

Net Margin

7.3%

20.7%

65.7%

31.1%

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