Nordson Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Nordson (NAS: NDSN) came in under analysts' estimates last quarter but now has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Nordson is a manufacturer of equipment used for precision material dispensing, testing and inspection, surface preparation, and curing.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Nordson with five of eight analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Nordson as much as competitor Flow International overall. Three out of four analysts rate Flow International a buy compared to three of eight for Nordson. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steadfast in their opinion of the stock.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $320.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 10.4% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.81 per share. Estimates range from $0.78 to $0.83.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 97.8% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 94.5% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Nordson, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 40 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Nordson's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Nordson's profit has risen year over year by an average of 12.4% over the past five quarters.

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

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

60.2%

62.0%

61.3%

58.7%

Operating Margin

25.2%

29.0%

24.2%

25.3%

Net Margin

18.1%

20.5%

16.9%

18.5%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks

At the time thisarticle was published

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