Crane (NYSE: CR) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Crane manufactures engineered industrial products. Its five business segments are: aerospace and electronics, engineered materials, merchandising systems, fluid handling, and controls.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $652.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 13.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.90 per share. Estimates range from $0.88 to $0.92.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 94.3% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 92.2% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Crane, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 52 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Crane's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Crane's profit has risen year over year by an average of 20.3% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

33.8%

34.3%

34.9%

32.9%

Operating Margin

12.5%

12.4%

11.9%

9.4%

Net Margin

8.0%

7.8%

7.9%

6.9%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.