What happened
Shares of online auto-sales marketplace CarGurus (CARG +0.56%) were trading lower on Friday, after the company's fourth-quarter earnings and first-quarter guidance fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
As of 1 p.m. EST, CarGurus' shares were down about 9% from Thursday's closing price.
So what
CarGurus reported its fourth-quarter 2020 earnings after the market closed on Thursday, and while they weren't bad, they weren't great. Revenue of $151.55 million beat Wall Street's consensus expectation number ($148.93 million), but its earnings of $0.22 per share fell short of analysts' $0.27 average forecast.
More telling, the total number of dealers paying to list vehicles via CarGuru's service as of Dec. 31, 2020 fell by 9% from the year-earlier total, to 30,631. While the company pitched that as a win -- it could certainly have been worse amid the COVID-19 pandemic -- investors weren't excited.
Image source: Getty Images.
CarGurus' guidance wasn't quite what Wall Street expected, either. While the revenue range the company provided ($156 million to $160 million) was above analysts' consensus forecast, CarGurus said that auto investors should expect a first-quarter profit between $0.21 per share and $0.23 per share. Wall Street was expecting $0.27 per share, on average.
That's why the stock was trading lower on Friday.
Now what
Wall Street's reactions to the report were mixed:
- D.A. Davidson analyst Tom White cut his rating on CarGurus to neutral from buy.
- Benchmark's Daniel Kumos maintained his previous buy rating and raised his price target to $40, from $35.
- Needham's Chris Pierce maintained his firm's hold rating.
Long story short? CarGurus remains in a strong position relative to its major competitors. But 2020 was a challenging year for the entire industry, and the challenges could linger for a while longer.
