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 Medidata Solutions (MDSO), a cloud-based software solutions provider to the life sciences industry, advanced as much as 16% after reporting its third-quarter earnings results.
So what: For the quarter, Medidata Solutions reported record quarterly revenue of $70.9 million, an increase of 27% from the year-ago period, of which application service revenue (i.e., the recurring type) accounted for $57.9 million and was up 32% year over year. Profit for the quarter came in at an adjusted $0.40 per share, which was $0.07 better than Wall Street was expecting. Looking ahead, Medidata boosted its revenue forecast slightly to a range of $275.3 million to $276.8 million and guided adjusted non-GAAP net income to a range of $37.3 million to $38.3 million, or $1.38-$1.42 in EPS, which compares favorably to the consensus of $1.37.
Now what: This was definitely another solid quarter from Medidata. It is benefiting from the move toward all things digital in the health care industry and the need for life sciences companies to reduce expenses by becoming more efficient, which is what Medidata's cloud-based applications accomplish. But I can't help but think that Medidata's lofty expectations are already baked into its share price. Medidata is currently trading at 19 times book value, 12 times sales, and a frothy 73 times its fiscal 2014 projected EPS, all while its sales growth is expected to slow to just 21% next year. Based on these figures, I'd suggest passing on Medidata until the valuation makes a bit more sense.
