Investors never know what to expect for Jefferies Group (NYSE: JEF), as it has wavered between topping and missing analysts estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, March 20. Jefferies Group and its subsidiaries operate as independent, full-service global securities and investment banking firm serving companies and their investors.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Jefferies Group with four of six analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Jefferies Group as much as competitor Greenhill overall. One out of three analysts rate Greenhill a buy compared to one of six for Jefferies Group. 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 $699.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 5.8% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 28 cents per share. Estimates range from 23 cents to 35 cents.

What our community says:
 CAPS All Stars are strongly supporting the stock, with 80% granting it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community concurs with the All Stars, with 76.1% giving it a rating of "outperform." Jefferies Group's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
 Jefferies Group's profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 10.7% over the past five quarters. 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 illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Jefferies Group has seen slipping net margins year-over-year for the last four quarters. Net margins reflect what percentage of each dollar earned by the company becomes profit. Here is how Jefferies Group has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Net Margin

-5.4%

5.8%

8.3%

9%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.