What happened
Shares of NetApp (NTAP 1.54%), a provider of cloud data-management solutions, were hit hard on Thursday. Shares finished the trading day down about 14.5%.
The tech stock's decline followed NetApp's fiscal third-quarter results, which were released after market close Wednesday. Despite the timing of this sell-off in relation to the earnings report, pressure on the stock price may be more related to a sell-off in the overall market on Thursday than the numbers NetApp reported.
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So what
Fiscal third-quarter revenue was $1.47 billion, up 5% year over year. Adjusted earnings per share for the period were $1.10, down from $1.16 in the year-ago period. These figures beat analysts' average forecasts for the two metrics by a wide margin. The analyst consensus was for revenue and adjusted earnings per share of $1.43 billion and $1.01, respectively.
Meanwhile, however, many tech stocks were getting slammed on Thursday. Highlighting the outsize sell-off in tech, the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.5% while the S&P 500 declined 2.5%. The beating tech stocks took is likely a key reason that NetApp stock is down on Thursday.
Now what
CEO George Kurian was upbeat: "Looking ahead, we are uniquely positioned to address customers' requirements for digital transformations as they deploy workloads in the cloud, as well as maintain and modernize on premises. We are confident in the strength of our position as customers continue to turn to NetApp to help them solve the challenge of managing data in the hybrid cloud as the recovery unfolds."
Despite a bad day for the stock, NetApp's business seems to be doing well.
