What happened
Shares of data-analytics platform specialist Alteryx (AYX) were down 10% as of 3:30 p.m. EST Wednesday despite a lack of company-specific news.
That said, Alteryx management did hold a previously scheduled presentation at the Raymond James Technology Investors Conference today. But the stock's decline began well before that presentation kicked off. And even then, the event's attendees reportedly said management's comments included no negative surprises that might have spurred such a drop.
So what
It appears Alteryx is being dragged down as part of a broader pullback in cloud-computing and SaaS names today. And it certainly didn't help that the stock was up a whopping 84% year to date leading into yesterday's close, including a 24% gain last month as the market celebrated Alteryx's impressive third-quarter 2019 results.
Now what
This kind of volatility is par for the course for high-flying, fast-growing tech stocks like Alteryx. I think investors would do well to focus first on the health of its underlying business, as Alteryx works to capture as large a piece as possible of what management describes as a $28 billion total addressable market -- and that's just for its flagship Alteryx Designer product alone.
Considering that Alteryx's growth story appears to remain firmly intact -- and given its modest $6.5 billion market cap as of this writing -- I think these kinds of no-news moves might prove to be compelling opportunities for long-term investors to open or add to their positions.
