American Vanguard Earnings Preview

While American Vanguard (NYSE: AVD) missed estimates last quarter, investors hope that it will bounce back and outpace Wall Street expectations this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, March 6. American Vanguard is mainly a specialty chemical manufacturer that develops and markets safe and effective products for agricultural and commercial uses.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts like American Vanguard better than competitor FMC overall. Eight out of nine analysts rate FMC a buy compared to two out of two for American Vanguard. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steady in their opinion of the stock.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.17 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.18.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 94.6% granting it an outperform rating. The greater community agrees with the All-Stars, as 94.8% give it a rating of outperform. Even with a robust four out of five stars, American Vanguard's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
American Vanguard's profit has risen year over year by an average of 80.6% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company upped its gross margin by 4.5 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 8.2% while cost of sales rose 0.5% to $43.1 million from a year earlier.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Margins illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. American Vanguard has seen increasing operating margins year over year for the last four quarters. Operating margins reflect the total sales revenue that the company retains after costs. Here are American Vanguard's reported margins for the last four quarters:

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.