Anyone who needed a refresher in the dangers of owning high-growth stocks got one this week, when Rackspace Hosting (RAX) reported fourth-quarter results that disappointed Wall Street. The stock fell 20% as a result.
Rackspace's "miss" featured plenty of impressive numbers. Overall, revenue improved 24.6%, while sales of cloud-hosted services rose 49.4%. Cash from operations grew 19.3%. All signs point to customers adopting Rackspace's most profitable services in greater volume, and that's despite intense competition from Amazon.com's (AMZN -1.64%) formidable Web Services unit, which some say is due to bring the e-commerce titan more than $4 billion in revenue this year alone.
Can Rackspace grow at the brisk pace Wall Street wants in such a tough market? Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova talked with Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier following the earnings call, and cites two good reasons for Foolish investors to remain optimistic. Click the video below to learn more, and then leave a comment to let us know what you think.
