Quest Software Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know (QSFT)

Quest Software Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

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Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Enterprise systems management software shop Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT ) saw its shares take a beating today, falling as much as 16.7% on many times the average trading volume.

So what: Quest's first-quarter results missed Street estimates on both the top and bottom lines, hampered by sliver-thin margins as operating costs skyrocketed. The company just opened a brand-new operations center in Ireland, and those projects don't come cheap.

Now what: Sales increased by 10% year-over-year but would have flatlined if not for a couple of recent tuck-in acquisitions to boost revenue. I read that as a lack of excitement for Quest's systems management suite -- and perhaps an opportunity for CA (NYSE: CA ) and IBM (NYSE: IBM ) to steal market share from Quest. That's hardly an ideal position for a small-cap niche player in a bustling industry, and no support at all for Quest's premium valuation of more than 20 times trailing earnings.

Interested in more info on Quest Software? Add it to your watchlist.

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

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Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. The Fool owns shares of International Business Machines. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors.

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