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: Office product maker ACCO Brands (ACCO 1.24%) jumped as much as 15.6% today after announcing preliminary fourth-quarter results.
So what: Management expects full-year revenue to drop 5% to $1.76 billion, which sounds bad but is slightly ahead of expectations. What's even better is that full-year adjusted earnings are expected to be between $0.78 and $0.79, ahead of the $0.76 estimate. That's what had investors excited today.
Now what: It's never good to see revenue decline, but it appears that the bottom line is still intact. Shares now trade at just nine times earnings, which is reasonable even with the decline in revenue. More detail will come out during the full earnings report on Feb. 12, which is when investors should look to see if revenue will reverse course in 2014, a shift that would make the stock very attractive.
