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 Blucora (AVTA) skyrocketed more than 20% Wednesday after the Internet services specialist easily beat estimates with its third-quarter earnings report.
So what: Quarterly revenue came in at $124.1 million, which translated to an adjusted net income of $0.30 per diluted share. Meanwhile, analysts were only looking for adjusted earnings of $0.16 per share on $95.85 million in sales.
In addition, Blucora stated it expects fourth-quarter revenue to be between $156 million and $164 million, with adjusted earnings between $0.34 and $39 per share. Analysts, by contrast, were modeling Q4 adjusted earnings of just $0.15 per share on sales of $98.45 million.
Now what: Blucora CEO Bill Ruckelshaus weighed in:
Our businesses performed well in the third quarter. InfoSpace is executing through changes in the search marketplace and TaxACT is readying for the coming tax season. We were also thrilled to add Monoprice to our Company in the third quarter.
Any way you slice it, Blucora's beat was solid. And though shares may look relatively expensive looking backward, trading at nearly 37 times last year's earnings, the stock looks much more reasonable on a forward basis of around 11.7 times next year's estimates. If all goes as planned, and Blucora can maintain its momentum going forward, I think patient long-term investors could still stand to be rewarded.
