OYO Geospace 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 seismic data expert OYO Geospace (Nasdaq: OYOG  ) shook down to a 14.7% overnight drop this morning, bouncing back to a smaller 6% loss on curiously low volume.

So what: The lack of high-volume trading is unusual because the company reported third-quarter results this morning. Its $46.4 million in sales fell somewhat short of Street expectations, but the $1.44 of earnings per share was right on the nose.

Now what: CEO Gary Owens expressed satisfaction with these results but also said that he was "uncertain how current worldwide economic matters will potentially impact our business in the future." OYO is a small player in a big market where rivals ION Geophysical (NYSE: IO  ) , Amphenol (NYSE: APH  ) , and CGG Veritas (NYSE: CGV  ) have many times its modest market cap, sales, and resources. But the company is also doing many things right, like introducing a flexible range of buy, rent, or lease options for its seismic equipment. Earlier this summer, that flexibility led to Dawson Geophysical (Nasdaq: DWSN  ) converting a large equipment rental into an outright sale, boosting OYO's results significantly.

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