Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Bob Evans Farms' (Nasdaq: BOBE) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, February 14. Bob Evans Farms is a full-service restaurant company that operates two distinct restaurant concepts - Bob Evans Restaurants and Mimi's Cafes.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Bob Evans Farms with three of five analysts rating it hold. Analysts like Bob Evans Farms better than competitor Cracker Barrel overall. One out of six analysts rate Cracker Barrel a buy compared to two of five for Bob Evans Farms. While analysts still rate the stock a Hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $430.8 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 $0.60 per share. Estimates range from $0.57 to $0.64.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are in strong support of the stock, with 76.1% giving it an "outperform" rating. The majority of Fools (67.7%) agree with the All-Stars and award it an "outperform" rating. Fools have embraced Bob Evans Farms, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 61 posts in the past 30 days. Bob Evans Farms' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. For the last two quarters, the company's operating margins have been up year-over-year. Operating margins measure what percentage of a company's revenue remains after factoring in the cost of running the business. See how Bob Evans Farms has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

69.1%

70.1%

0%

68.5%

Operating Margin

5.2%

6.8%

0%

5.9%

Net Margin

3.1%

4.4%

0%

3.6%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.