Forest Oil (NYSE: FST) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings Monday. Forest Oil is an independent oil and gas company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of natural gas and liquids, mainly North America.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with 11 analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Forest Oil better than competitor Quicksilver Resources overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $197.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 6.1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.26 per share. Estimates range from $0.03 to $0.33.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 93.1% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.1% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Forest Oil, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 90 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Forest Oil, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:

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

83.1%

74.7%

78.5%

76.3%

Operating Margin

40.2%

32.2%

39.2%

37.1%

Net Margin

16.4%

(1.6%)

7.6%

32.8%

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