Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Brown Shoe Co.'s (NYSE: BWS) 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 Wednesday. Brown Shoe is a footwear retailer and wholesaler that provides an offering of licensed, branded, and private-label casual, dress, and athletic footwear products.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Brown Shoe with three of five analysts rating it hold. Analysts like Brown Shoe better than competitor SKECHERS USA overall. Zero out of five analysts rate SKECHERS USA a buy compared to two of five for Brown Shoe. Analysts' rating of Brown Shoe has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $643.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 6.5% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.20 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.25.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are enthusiastically backing the stock, with 85.7% assigning it an outperform rating. Most of the community backs the All-Stars, with 80% awarding it a rating of outperform. Brown Shoe Company's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases.

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. The company's operating margins have been decreasing year-over-year for the last four quarters. Operating margins reflect the total sales revenue that the company retains after costs. Here is how Brown Shoe has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

38.7%

37.7%

40.0%

38.9%

Operating Margin

4.5%

0%

2.0%

1.0%

Net Margin

4.7%

(0.7%)

0.6%

0.6%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.