What happened
Shares of digital document-signing specialist DocuSign (DOCU 3.24%) rose 7.1% in March, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
For context, the S&P 500 index returned negative-12.4%. Last month's market plunge was a continuation of the sell-off that began in mid-February that's being driven by investors' concerns about the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic.
(So far this month, though Monday, April 6, DocuSign stock is up 2.2%, versus the broader market 1.5% return.)
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
We can attribute DocuSign's solid performance last month to two factors: the technology company's March 12 release of a strong fourth-quarter earnings report and investor optimism that its business won't be negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, there's reason to believe that its business could get a boost from the crisis. Its services enable people to conduct transactions remotely that may otherwise need to be done in-= person.
In the fourth quarter, DocuSign's revenue rose 38% year over year to $274.9 million and its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) doubled to $0.12. Both results easily beat the Wall Street consensus estimates, which were for EPS of $0.05 on revenue of nearly $266 million.
Now what
DocuSign management guided for first-quarter 2020 revenue of about $282 million. That projection pleased the market, as analysts had been modeling for $276 million.
