Investors never know what to expect for Tredegar (NYSE: TG), as it has wavered between topping and missing analysts estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, March 15. Tredegar manufactures plastic films and aluminum extrusions through its subsidiaries.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Tredegar, while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Tredegar's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $229.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 19.9% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.23 per share. Estimates range from $0.16 to $0.30.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly supporting the stock, with 84.6% granting it an outperform rating. The greater community agrees with the All-Stars, as 88.5% give it a rating of outperform. The bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars for Tredegar outpaces Fool enthusiasm for the company.

Management:
Tredegar's profit has risen year over year by an average of 11.4% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 3.2% while cost of sales rose 6.8% to $169.4 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Tredegar has seen declining gross margins year over year for the last four quarters. Gross margins reflect the total sales revenue retained after costs. See how Tredegar has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

16.9%

14.7%

15.5%

19.8%

Operating Margin

6.2%

4.7%

5.0%

5.8%

Net Margin

6.2%

2.8%

3.5%

4.0%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Tredegar's movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.