Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) came in right in line with the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors are hoping that it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Barnes & Noble sells books, magazines, music, and movies to customers.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Barnes & Noble as a buy. But with 66.7% of analysts rating it a buy, Barnes & Noble is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest six competitors, which average 67.7% buys. Analysts like Barnes & Noble better than competitor Hastings Entertainment overall. Zero out of one analysts rate Hastings Entertainment a buy compared to two of three for Barnes & Noble. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.98 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 3.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.02 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.08 to a profit of $0.15.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are split on Barnes & Noble, with 48.5% rating it an outperform and 51.5% giving it an underperform rating. The community is split on the stock with 52.7% Fools granting it an outperform rating and 47.3% an underperform rating. Fools are skeptical of Barnes & Noble and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 352 posts in the past 30 days. Barnes & Noble's bearish CAPS rating of one out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:

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

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

27.3%

27.5%

26.4%

23.6%

Operating Margin

(5.6%)

(5.9%)

4.9%

(0.5%)

Net Margin

(4.0%)

(4.3%)

2.6%

(0.7%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks