Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of SWS Group's (NYSE: SWS) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Nov. 9. SWS Group is a financial holding company focused on delivering investment, commercial banking, and related financial services to individual, corporate, and institutional investors, broker/dealers, governmental entities, and financial intermediaries.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are divided on SWS Group, with equal numbers rating the stock a buy, sell, and hold. Analysts' rating of SWS Group has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $98.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 1.2% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.02 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.04 to a loss of $0.01.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 91.7% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 91.5% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on SWS Group, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 36 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, SWS Group's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Net Margin

0%

(2.4%)

(1.3%)

(20.1%)

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