Bearings manufacturer RBC Bearings (NYSE: RBC) will be reporting results this Thursday before market open. Here’s what investors should know.

RBC Bearings beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.1% last quarter, reporting revenues of $455.3 million, up 14.4% year on year. It was a satisfactory quarter for the company, with a decent beat of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates.

Is RBC Bearings a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, analysts are expecting RBC Bearings’s revenue to grow 16.7% year on year to $460.3 million, improving from the 5.5% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $2.86 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. RBC Bearings has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates four times over the last two years.

Looking at RBC Bearings’s peers in the industrial machinery segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Applied Industrial delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 8.4%, missing analysts’ expectations by 0.7%, and GE Aerospace reported revenues up 17.6%, topping estimates by 13.9%. Applied Industrial traded down 9% following the results while GE Aerospace was also down 7.7%.

Read our full analysis of Applied Industrial’s results here and GE Aerospace’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the industrial machinery segment, with share prices up 8.5% on average over the last month. RBC Bearings is up 11.9% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $518.67 (compared to the current share price of $515.88).

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