Gartner Earnings Preview

Gartner (NYSE: IT) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Gartner is an information technology research and advisory company, which offers independent and objective research and analysis on the information technology, computer hardware, software, communications, and related technology industries.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Gartner, with six of seven rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Gartner better than competitor Navigant Consulting overall. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of Gartner for the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $428.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 12% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.47 per share. Estimates range from $0.45 to $0.48.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly backing the stock, with 93.9% awarding it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community is in line with the All-Stars, with 75.5% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Gartner, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 36 posts in the past 30 days. Gartner's bearish CAPS rating of one out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Gartner's profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 51.3% over the past five quarters.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Gartner's operating margins have been increasing year-over-year for the last four quarters. Operating margins reflect the total sales revenue that the company retains after costs. See how Gartner has been doing for the last four quarters:

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Gartner movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.