Unisys Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

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: Shares of IT all-rounder Unisys (NYSE: UIS  ) fell as much as 10.3% today on very heavy trading volume due to a disappointing second-quarter report.

So what: Unisys actually beat adjusted earnings estimates of $0.83 per share with a final tally of $0.93 per share, after backing out debt restructuring charges and a negative tax event in Brazil. But revenues came in far below Street expectations, hurt by slow orders from government customers and an extreme ebb of sales of ClearPath mainframe systems.

Now what: That's the third substantial estimate miss in the past four quarters from Unisys; the 10th in the past four years -- not exactly what you'd call crisp execution. The stock has lagged the broader market over the past year, or five years, or 10, while comparable rivals IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) , Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL  ) , and Syntel (Nasdaq: SYNT  ) have all crushed the S&P 500 in each of these periods. Moreover, they all pay dividends while Unisys doesn't. What more reason would you need to look into Unisys alternatives right now?

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