After beating estimates last quarter by $0.15, Standard Microsystems (Nasdaq: SMSC) has set the standard for itself. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Standard Microsystems designs and sells a wide range of silicon-based integrated circuits that utilize analog and mixed-signal technologies.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Standard Microsystems, with five of six rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts don't like Standard Microsystems as much as competitor Micrel overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $107.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 0.5% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.17 per share.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 90.5% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.5% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Standard Microsystems, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 21 posts in the past 30 days. Standard Microsystems has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 8.2% while cost of sales rose 15% to $52.2 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

53.6%

53.9%

48.1%

52.1%

Operating Margin

19.1%

7.4%

2.7%

(7.6%)

Net Margin

10.6%

6.0%

1.7%

(4.3%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks