FTI Consulting Earnings Preview

FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN  ) 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 on Friday, Feb. 24. FTI Consulting is a business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value in complex economic, legal, and regulatory environments.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on FTI Consulting with six out of 11 analysts rating it a hold. Analysts don't like FTI Consulting as much as competitor Huron Consulting Group overall. Four out of six analysts rate Huron Consulting Group a buy compared to five out of 11 for FTI Consulting. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $397.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.67 per share. Estimates range from $0.61 to $0.72.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 96.4% assigning it an outperform rating. The greater community concurs with the All-Stars, as 96.5% give it a rating of outperform. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of FTI Consulting, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
FTI Consulting's income has fallen year over year by an average of 3.9% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Margins illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. FTI Consulting has seen decreasing gross margins year over year for the last four quarters. Gross margins reflect the total sales revenue retained after costs. Here are FTI Consulting's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	39.6%	38.3%	39.4%	42.4%
Operating Margin	14.4%	9.1%	13.4%	9.7%
Net Margin	7.1%	4.2%	6.0%	3.0%

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

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.

Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.