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 ARC Document Solutions (ARC -1.08%), or American Reprographics, have risen 10% today following the company's solid third-quarter earnings report.
So what: ARC's revenue rose 2% year over year in the third quarter to reach $101.3 million, a modest gain, but enough to best Wall Street's consensus top-line estimate of $99.3 million. The company's earnings of $0.02 per share matched the consensus. Looking ahead, ARC now sees a full-year EPS range of $0.06 to $0.09 per share, slightly ahead of the $0.08 estimate on the high end.
Now what: ARC had already doubled over the past year before today's pop came along, but this is all despite the fact that revenue has been on a steady decline, profit has been elusive, and neither EBITDA nor free cash flow have shown any growth over the past five years. In fact, free cash flow has been moving lower along with revenue! There's nothing in the company's "progress" of late to indicate that this stock price growth is justified, so I'd simply avoid it entirely.