Hittite Microwave (Nasdaq: HITT) didn't hit the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors hope that it will rebound this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, April 26. Hittite Microwave Corporation designs and develops high performance integrated circuits, modules and subsystems for technically demanding radio frequency, microwave and millimeterwave applications.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Hittite Microwave with three of four analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Hittite Microwave as much as competitor Semtech overall. Four out of five analysts rate Semtech a buy compared to one of four for Hittite Microwave.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $61.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 7.9% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.53 per share. Estimates range from $0.52 to $0.55.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are enthusiastically backing the stock, with 94.7% assigning it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community agrees with the All-Stars, with 96% granting it a rating of "outperform." Hittite Microwave has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Hittite Microwave's profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 10.8% over the past five quarters. A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Hittite Microwave has seen declining gross margins year-over-year for the last four quarters. Gross margins reflect the total sales revenue retained after costs. Here are Hittite Microwave's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Gross Margin

74.0%

74.5%

72.7%

73.0%

Operating Margin

40.9%

48.8%

46.8%

46.4%

Net Margin

35.3%

32.9%

30.4%

30.0%

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