If UGI (NYSE: UGI) misses estimates again it will be the fourth consecutive quarter for the company. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, April 26. UGI is a domestic and international retail distributor of propane and butane, natural gas and electric service through regulated local distribution utilities.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on UGI while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like UGI better than competitor Vectren overall. Zero out of six analysts rate Vectren a buy compared to one of two for UGI. Analysts' rating of UGI has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $2.76 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 26.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.24 per share. Estimates range from $1.23 to $1.25.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly supporting the stock, with 95.7% giving it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community concurs with the All-Stars, with 94.9% awarding it a rating of "outperform." UGI has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

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

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Margins illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. UGI has seen decreasing 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 are UGI's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

34.8%

(88.6%)

33.9%

34.7%

Net Margin

5.2%

(2.2%)

(0.7%)

6.9%

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