Medical Properties Trust Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Medical Properties Trust's (NYS: MPW) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Jan. 26. Medical Properties Trust is a self-advised real estate investment trust which acquires, develops, leases, and makes other investments in healthcare facilities.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Medical Properties Trust with five of seven analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Medical Properties Trust as much as competitor National Health Investors overall. Two out of six analysts rate National Health Investors a buy compared to one of seven for Medical Properties Trust. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of Medical Properties Trust for the past three months.

  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $40.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 27.2% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.21 per share. Estimates range from $0.20 to $0.22.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly supporting the stock, with 96.1% giving it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community agrees with the All-Stars, with 91.4% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Medical Properties Trust and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 103 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Medical Properties Trust, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Medical Properties Trust's income has fallen year-over-year by an average of more than twofold over the past five quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins serve as an illustration of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Medical Properties Trust's net margins, which reflect what percentage of each dollar earned by the company becomes profit, are down for the last two quarters year-over-year. See how Medical Properties Trust has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Net Margin

1.6%

8.1%

30.2%

35.7%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Medical Properties Trust movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

At the time thisarticle was published Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Advertisement