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 VMware (VMW) fell nearly 11% early Wednesday, then settled to close down 9% despite slightly better-than-expected first quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 14% year over year to $1.36 billion, which translated to 9% growth in VMware's adjusted net income to $0.80 per share. It's also worth noting on a comparable basis -- which means excluding revenues attributable to Pivotal and divestitures in 2013 -- revenue would have increased 18%. Analysts, on average, were looking for earnings of just $0.79 per share on sales of $1.35 billion.
After the small beat, however, some investors might be disappointed VMware simply reaffirmed full-year guidance, which calls for 2014 revenue between $5.94 billion and $6.10 billion. The midpoint of that range is a hair below analysts' expectations for 2014 revenue of $6.03 billion. Meanwhile, 2014 adjusted operating margin is expected to hold steady at roughly 31%.
Now what: But that hardly seems deserving of today's 9% plunge. To the market's credit, though, shares don't exactly look cheap trading around 9 times last year's sales and 22.5 times next year's earnings estimates. In any case, while I'm not particularly anxious to dive in today, I think any further punishment to VMware shares in the coming weeks could create an attractive opportunity for patient long-term investors to open a position.
