A double-digit jump in share price is typically what doesn't happen when a company reports earnings featuring declines in key metrics, not to mention a double miss on both revenue and profitability.
Yet after Nokia (NOK 0.28%) published its latest quarterly figures toward the end of this week, its market value popped. Happily, the company had other good news coming down the pike during the period. As a result, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Nokia's stock was up by nearly 11% week to date as of early Friday morning.
The fourth quarter fell short, but...
Before U.S. markets opened Thursday, Finland-based Nokia unveiled its fourth-quarter numbers. These showed that the telecom company's net sales tumbled by 23% year over year to just over 5.7 billion euros ($6.2 billion), while adjusted net income fell at a steeper 39% clip to hit 568 million euros ($617 million, or $0.11 per share).
On average, analysts tracking the stock were modeling almost $7.1 billion on the top line, and $0.15 per share for adjusted net income.
Despite the clear twin misses, investors were cheered by several recent developments reported by the company. It said that it saw a dramatic improvement in order intake from clients during the quarter. Meanwhile, it delivered notably wider margins in operating profits for key segments thanks in no small part to cost-cutting initiatives.
Nokia on the moon
Those fourth-quarter positives weren't the only developments improving sentiment on Nokia stock. On Tuesday, the company reported that its Nokia Bell Labs research arm was one of the 14 organizations selected by the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to participate in LunA-10.
This project was described by the company as being an "initiative that will design an integrated multi-service architecture to support a thriving economy on the Moon in the next decade and beyond." Nokia did not provide any estimates for how this would impact its fundamentals.
