What happened
K12 (LRN 4.44%), provider of a learning platform, saw its shares surge on Wednesday. The stock rose as much as 27.9% following the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings release. As of 11:51 a.m. EDT, the stock was up 25.5%.
Better-than-expected overall results and an optimistic outlook were likely key reasons for the market's bullishness toward K12 on Wednesday.
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So what
Helped by a 6.9% year-over-year increase in managed public school (MPS) enrollments, K12 reported revenue of $251.3 million, crushing a consensus analyst estimate of about $227 million. Fiscal first-quarter revenue was up 9.8% from the year-ago quarter.
K12's loss per share for its fiscal first quarter was $0.22, narrower than analysts' average forecast for a loss of $0.40.
Highlighting K12's momentum, this was the company's third quarter in a row of accelerating year-over-year growth in MPS enrollments. In addition, this was K12's highest enrollment growth rate in six years.
Now what
K12's outlook was much better than analysts expected. Management guided for fiscal second-quarter revenue between $250 million and $255 million, above a consensus analyst forecast for about $229 million. For the full 2019 fiscal year, management forecast $1 billion to $1.01 billion in revenue, beating analysts' average estimate for $951 million.
K12 management expects its fiscal-2019 adjusted operating income to increase more than 20% year over year to $56 million to $60 million.
