ValueClick Earnings Preview

Watch ValueClick's (Nasdaq: VCLK) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. ValueClick offers a suite of products and services that enable marketers to advertise and sell their products through online marketing channels such as display advertising, lead generation marketing, email marketing, and search marketing.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on ValueClick with eight of 15 analysts rating it hold. 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 $137.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 28.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.21 per share. Estimates range from $0.19 to $0.23.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 92.7% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 93.8% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on ValueClick and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 236 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of ValueClick, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
ValueClick's profit has risen year over year by an average of 25.2% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 4.6 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 25.6% while cost of sales rose 46.6% to $40.1 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.

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