November was a fantastic month for the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC +0.04%), and December got off to a great start as well. As of 3:15 p.m. EST, the Nasdaq appeared to be record-bound, rising more than 1% and leading other major market benchmarks higher on the first day of the new month.
Judging from the positive sentiment, you might reasonably figure that Monday afternoon's financial report from Zoom Video Communications (ZM +4.96%) was a favorable one. From a fundamental standpoint, you'd be correct about that. Yet shareholders didn't react that way, and Zoom was actually the biggest loser among Nasdaq-100 stocks on the day. The move also pulled down shares of fellow red-hot software-as-a-service stock DocuSign (DOCU +2.49%), which is set to report its own earnings later this week.
Zoom loses lift
Shares of Zoom Video Communications lost 16% Tuesday afternoon. The video conferencing specialist reported third-quarter results that on their face continued the company's long streak of amazing performance, but shareholders didn't see any room for the stock price to move higher.
Image source: Zoom Video Communications.
The numbers from the quarter were exemplary. Zoom's revenue jumped a whopping 367% year over year. Adjusted net income was nearly a dozen times higher than it was this time last year.
Zoom has seen amazing adoption numbers. Almost 434,000 customers with more than 10 employees use Zoom, up by nearly 500% from the third quarter of last year. Zoom saw the number of customers spending $100,000 or more on the platform rise 136% to 1,289.
The good times are likely to continue. Zoom projected revenue growth for the fourth quarter of about 330%, with earnings per share likely to rise between 15 and 16 times what the company brought in during the fourth quarter of last year.
Yet amid all that positive news, shareholders couldn't get past the fact that the stock still trades at about 60 times its trailing sales for the past 12 months. Moreover, with coronavirus vaccines potentially bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control in the coming months, many fear that users will flee Zoom as soon as in-person alternatives become available again. Those concerns might be valid as short-term hiccups, but Zoom has established itself as a go-to leader in video collaboration, and many of its users aren't ever going to go back to the way they did things before.
A signoff for DocuSign stock?
DocuSign also took a hit, with its share price moving lower by 6%. The electronic signature specialist is set to report its earnings on Thursday afternoon, but investors seemed to lose heart a bit in the company's future prospects.
Like Zoom, DocuSign took full advantage of the conditions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic earlier in the year. With people unable to come together in person to sign critical documents, the legally binding alternative that DocuSign's platform offered became essential. That spurred huge growth in the use of the service, with plenty of paying customers signing on.
Today's decline comes even as analysts expect third-quarter results to remain strong. Even so, though, Zoom's move Tuesday shows that even a great quarter might not be enough to send the stock price higher.
In a year in which stocks like DocuSign and Zoom have soared, it's becoming apparent that share prices might have gotten ahead of themselves. That's what's sending some of the hottest stocks on the Nasdaq down, but it isn't holding back the market overall from its bullish stance as December begins.
