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 network infrastructure installer Black Box
So what: In the just published first-quarter report, Black Box saw sales rising 2% year-over-year to $268 million, while earnings slipped 29% to $0.53 per share. Management pinned the performance on "strategic pricing initiatives," designed to boost future results at the cost of short-term profit pain.
Now what: You say "strategic pricing;" I say "fire sale." Not quite as catchy as the tomato-tomahto thing, but that's what this is; management doesn't expect its wounded gross margins to recover in the newborn fiscal year of 2012. As an installer of telecom equipment from Alcatel-Lucent
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