Tired of earnings and financials and share price changes and non-GAAP operating margins and future cash positions? Too bad.
It’s earnings season in the markets, and that means that the tech companies we can spell and have heard of are collectively spilling their guts about their recent performance. For some firms, this means recurring record highs. And for others, recurring record lows.
There are two groups we have to hit on: the outliers and the recent reporters. We’ll approach them in that order.
The Outliers
Box, Twitter and Netflix are our trio, triple, triumvirate, and trivium of companies that didn’t report this week, but still matter from a numbers perspective.
Netflix continued its epic tear this week, following a smashing earnings report. Driving its recent updraft was a new price target for its shares, and news that it will expand into the Japanese market on September 2. Investors, already afire with its subscriber growth, appear hungry for more. And the Japanese market, along with others, could drive those figures north. Up went the shares to new record highs.
On the other end of that particular stick was Twitter. Twitter, the company that I most depend on in my life, is having a rough go of it. With no new CEO locked down, lackluster user growth an increasing problem, and, of course, investor discontent, Twitter’s shares set new record lows this week. Today, when Twitter closed at $27.02, it represented a new end-of-day record close; shares in the firm traded lower during intraday trading earlier, but rallied slightly before the cessation of normal trading.
And finally, Box, which will report earnings in around a month due to its fiscal calendar, picked up nearly 9 percent today. An upgrade on its shares, following recent product news, gave its equity flight. After testing some record lows of its own, Box is now back to the $15.50 range, which is a mere $1.50 above its IPO price. Good movement by the firm, certainly, but more of a regain than a burst-out.
Recent Reporters
The earnings cycle is difficult for young companies, and prickly for larger firms. Here’s a curated picture of this week’s reports. Curated in that it’s partial. Trust me, you don’t want all the news, and you very, very much don’t want us to cover more earnings. We’ll die, and so will you.
New Relic: New Relic had a good run this time around, posting better-than-expected revenue — $38.14 million — and a lower-than-expected loss of $0.21 per share. The company also gave forward guidance that was above street expectations. Result? Up.
NVIDIA: Another win this week was NVIDIA, which beat street expectations of $1.01 billion in revenue with a whacking $1.153 billion in sales, leading to a far better-than-expected profit of $0.34 per share. Result? Up.
Zynga: The sick pup managed to beat expectations in the financial sense, driving $200 million in revenue. The company, however, lost 18 percent of its user base on a sequential-quarter basis. That, and it lost 23 percent of its audience compared to the year-ago quarter. Still, the big top-line figure had investors happier than before. Result? Up.
Arista Networks: Arista, a firm that I have come to enjoy, spanked expectations by reporting $195.6 million in revenue, and an adjusted per-share profit of $0.54. And the firm has a solid $342.9 million in cash. Investors were like, yeah, we’ll take it. Result?: Up.
Castlight Health: A smaller firm among this mix, Castlight beat on revenue — $18.5 million v. expectations of $17.8 million — but missed modestly on profitability. The company’s guidance on its coming top line was a bit soft, however. Investors didn’t like the growth potential, and sold. Result? Down.
Tesla: Elon Musk’s car company beat on two adjusted metrics — revenue, and profit — with $1.2 billion and negative $0.48 per-share apiece. However, the company lowered its car delivery guidance from 55,000 this year, to a range of 55,000, and 50,000. Investors, worried about that and words from the CEO concerning its coming Model X vehicle were not enthused. Result? Down.
Etsy: In its first earnings report as a public company, Etsy beat on both profit and revenue. However, the company had some desultory words concerning its current quarter, including carefully worded cost, and revenue warnings. Investors don’t like it much when you barely best expectations, and then diss your current quarter. Result? Down.
Zendesk: Simple one here: A beat on revenue — $48.2 million over a $46.3 million expectation — and profit. Even more importantly, the company noted that it expects between $51 million and $53 million in current-quarter revenue. The street had expected an average of $50.68 million. Result: Up.
GoDaddy: GoDaddy’s earnings included a very minor revenue beat of $394.5 million over an expected $392.94 million, and a massive profit miss of negative $0.46 per share, instead of an expected per-share loss of $0.17. Can you guess what happened next? I can tell you! Result? Down.
Fitbit: And finally, Fitbit. We’ve saved the weirdest for last. Fitbit had a simply smashing quarter. I quote:
The wearable fitness-tracker maker smashed street expectations on revenue with $400 million while posting non-GAAP EPS of $0.21. Analysts had looked for Fitbit to generate $0.08 per-share profit on top line of $319 million.
And then its shares began to fall, losing more than 10 percent when it was all over. Why? The company guided for a reasonable year-over-year increase in revenue in the current quarter, but a lower top line tab on a sequential basis. For some reason, the street couldn’t just take a good quarter in stride and focus on long-term growth. Result? Down.
—
There, now if numbers come up at brunch tomorrow, you will be ready. You can thank us later.