Washington Federal (Nasdaq: WFSL) came in under analyst's estimates last quarter but now has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Washington Federal is a nondiversified unitary savings and loan holding company.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Washington Federal while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. 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 $103.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 0.8% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.29 per share. Estimates range from $0.26 to $0.33.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 78.3% giving it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 68.8% give it an outperform rating. Fools are bullish on Washington Federal, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 23 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Washington Federal, the stock has a mediocre CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Washington Federal's profit has risen year over year by an average of 92.9% over the past five 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

18.7%

18.2%

15.1%

14.4%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks