Watch Hibbett Sports' (Nasdaq: HIBB) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday, March 9. Hibbett Sports is an operator of sporting goods retail stores in small to mid-sized markets predominately in the Southeast, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, and lower Midwest regions of the United States.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Hibbett Sports as a buy. But with 53.3% of analysts rating it a buy, Hibbett Sports is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 54.5% buys. Analysts don't like Hibbett Sports as much as competitor Cabela's overall. Seven out of 10 analysts rate Cabela's a buy compared to eight of 15 for Hibbett Sports.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $192.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11.1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.57 per share. Estimates range from $0.53 to $0.60.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are enthusiastically backing the stock, with 85.1% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 80.3% granting it a rating of "outperform." Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Hibbett Sports, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Hibbett Sports' profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 26% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins serve as an illustration of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. For four quarters in a row, the company has seen increases in net margins year-over-year. Net margins reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit. Here is how Hibbett Sports has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

36.6%

33.1%

37.2%

34.9%

Operating Margin

13.5%

6.1%

16.8%

11.1%

Net Margin

8.6%

3.9%

10.5%

7.2%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.