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 pre-paid debit card provider NetSpend Holdings (Nasdaq: NTSP) are spiking 12% following its better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings results.

So what: For the quarter, NetSpend reported a profit of $0.13 on revenue of $76.8 million. This compares to Wall Street's expectation of $0.12 on revenue of $77.6 million. NetSpend projects that in fiscal 2012 it will earn in the range of $0.51 to $0.55 on revenue of $338 million to $347 million, which is in line with estimates.

Now what: The real story here is that the number of cardholders with direct deposit volume rose 20% and gross dollar volume jumped $300 million to $2.8 billion. There's a huge market for consumers with poor credit and NetSpend's results show they are well on their way to tapping a good portion of it. Following strong results from the entire credit services sector, I don't see any reason why NetSpend's good fortune won't continue.

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