Werner Enterprises Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Werner Enterprises (NAS: WERN) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Oct. 18. Werner Enterprises is a transportation and logistics company, which is engaged mainly in hauling truckload shipments of general commodities in both interstate and intrastate commerce.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with 14 analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Werner Enterprises better than competitor Knight Transportation overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.

  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $522.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 12.9% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.40 per share. Estimates range from $0.38 to $0.42.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see Werner Enterprises as a good bet, with 56.7% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The majority of Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars, as 67.9% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools have embraced Werner Enterprises, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 34 posts in the past 30 days. Werner Enterprises' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Werner Enterprises' profit has risen year over year by an average of 35.7% 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 11.3% while cost of sales rose 18% to $252.2 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

51.1%

50.7%

52.0%

55.0%

Operating Margin

8.8%

5.2%

8.6%

8.7%

Net Margin

5.3%

3.5%

5.2%

5.2%

For all our Werner Enterprises-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Werner Enterprises to My Watchlist.

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