Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Scotts Miracle-Gro is a manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded nondurable products for lawn and garden care and professional horticulture in North America and Europe.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Scotts Miracle-Gro, with eight out of 11 analysts rating it hold.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $205.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 10.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $1.22 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $1.25 to a loss of $1.20.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are in strong support of the stock, with 90.8% awarding it an outperform rating. The greater community concurs with the All-Stars, as 86.8% give it a rating of outperform. Fools are impressed with Scotts Miracle-Gro and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 131 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Scotts Miracle-Gro, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 7.9 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 12.3% while cost of sales fell 2.5% to $326.1 million from a year earlier.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Traditionally, margins serve as an illustration of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. The company's net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have slipped downward year over year in the last two quarters. Here is how Scotts Miracle-Gro has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Gross Margin

21.8%

37.8%

41%

21.3%

Operating Margin

(23.1%)

18.2%

21.7%

(41.1%)

Net Margin

(12.8%)

10.5%

15.7%

(29.5%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.