TIBCO Software Earnings Preview

Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that TIBCO Software (Nasdaq: TIBX  ) will top analyst expectations for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. TIBCO Software is a provider of infrastructure software. It offers a range of standards-based infrastructure software solutions that help organizations achieve the benefits of real-time business.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back TIBCO Software as a buy. But with 53.8% of analysts rating it a buy, TIBCO Software is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 58.5% buys. Analysts like TIBCO Software better than competitor Progress Software overall. Two out of four analysts rate Progress Software a buy compared to seven of 13 for TIBCO Software. 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 $281.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 16.6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.30 per share. Estimates range from $0.29 to $0.31.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 93.2% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 93% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on TIBCO Software and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 114 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, TIBCO Software's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
TIBCO Software's profit has risen year over year by an average of 42.7% 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	72.3%	71.5%	71.4%	76.0%
Operating Margin	16.0%	13.3%	10.2%	23.5%
Net Margin	10.3%	9.7%	8.6%	15.5%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks