Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
Last earnings season was very strange as we saw many stocks miss or offer “meh” guidance and still get rewarded. Some did not sell off, and others which did were bid up within days if not hours. The normal period of land mines, was a veritable walk in the park. But that was in a period of market giddiness and an LTRO orgy. This quarter, in the early going, looks to be far more normal. Both Intel (INTC) and IBM (IBM) had negative reactions (rightly so) to somewhat negative news, and today both Qualcomm (QCOM) and F5 Networks (FFIV) are being hit on first blush in the aftermarket. We’ll focus on old favorite F5 Networks in this post. Expectations were $335M and $1.07 in EPS.
Via PR:
- For the second quarter of fiscal 2012, F5 Networks, Inc. announced revenue of $339.6 million, up 5.3 percent from $322.4 million in the prior quarter and 22.4 percent from $277.6 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2011.
- Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation, amortization of purchased intangible assets and acquisition-related charges and related tax effects, non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was $87.1 million ($1.09 per diluted share), compared to $82.2 million ($1.03 per diluted share) in the prior quarter and $71.5 million ($0.88 per diluted share) in the second quarter of last year.
Everything is ok there.
As for next quarter, analysts are in for $353M and $1.14 EPS.
From F5
- For the current quarter, ending June 30, management has set a revenue goal of $350 million to $355 million with a GAAP earnings target of $0.88 to $0.90 per diluted share. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation and amortization of purchased intangible assets and related tax effects, the company’s non-GAAP earnings target is $1.12 to $1.14 per diluted share.
So in line on revenue, and a tad light-ish on EPS. Last quarter this would have been overlooked – this quarter not as much as the stock is down quite a bit in after hours. As I typed this the stock has recovered some, from the $114s-$116s back to $119-$120ish. Still down from the close of $124s but not as bad as the knee jerk reaction. Bigger picture however is what I said above – this was not much different than their report last quarter…. from which the stock catapulted. With higher prices and a more choppy environment come a higher standard.
Disclosure Notice
Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund’s holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog
