Watch Christopher & Banks' (NYSE: CBK) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Christopher & Banks operates retail stores selling women's apparel in the United States.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Christopher & Banks with analysts unanimously rating it hold. Christopher & Banks' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $124 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 2.5% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.50 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.50 to a loss of $0.49.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 92.5% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 87.4% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Christopher & Banks, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 82 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Christopher & Banks, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 6.4 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 5% while cost of sales rose 4.4% to $68.4 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

28.9%

34.7%

22.9%

35.9%

Operating Margin

(13.5%)

1.6%

(20.7%)

(0.2%)

Net Margin

(13.5%)

1.5%

(16.8%)

(7.6%)

For all our Christopher & Banks-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Christopher & Banks to My Watchlist.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Earnings estimates provided by Zacks