What: Cooper Companies (COO 0.64%), a medical-device maker, saw its shares drop by more than 12% on unusually high volume after the company reported fourth-quarter results that missed the Street's expectations in terms of both EPS and revenue. Specifically, the company reported non-GAAP EPS of $2.00 for the three-month period, missing consensus by $0.11. On the revenue side, Cooper generated $455.5 million in the fourth quarter, coming in below the Street's expectations by $18.71 million.
So what: The company's top and bottom lines were negatively affected by unfavorable exchange rates, along with integration and facility start-up costs during the quarter, according to the press release.
Now what: Management rolled out its initial fiscal outlook for 2016 in today's fourth-quarter earnings release as well. Unfortunately, this annual guidance failed to live up to expectations. In particular, the company is currently projecting that total annual revenue will grow by around 4.2% and EPS by as much as 6.2% next year. The Street, on the other hand, thinks 2016 annual revenue could grow by 7.3% and EPS by 12.7%.
This conservative annual guidance is certainly disappointing news for investors, especially since the stock is presently trading at a fairly rich premium compared to some of its closest competitors in the medical-device space, like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -0.58%). Digging into the details, Cooper stock currently sports a trailing-12-month P/E ratio greater than 32, whereas J&J is only slightly over 19, according to S&P Capital IQ. As such, investors may want to take a cautious approach with this global medical device company for the moment -- at least until there are clear cut signs that it can generate more impressive levels of growth moving forward.
