Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of LivePerson (LPSN -8.75%) started the day with a 19% gain, but have been gradually declining from that height throughout the day and now sit at a 12% gain as of this writing. Investors looked past the company's swing-and-a-miss on the bottom line, and are now looking forward to the company's upcoming quarter, which is set to beat expectations.
So what: LivePerson's revenue came in at $43.2 million for the second quarter, slightly ahead of the Street's $42.9 million consensus. However, its adjusted earnings of $0.03 missed estimates by $0.01. On the plus side, guidance for the third quarter now projects between $44 million and $45 million on the top line and an EPS range of $0.04 to $0.06. Both of those numbers are slightly ahead of analyst estimates that anticipated $44.2 million in revenue and $0.04 in EPS.
Now what: Analyst Terry Tillman at Raymond James still sees a notable upside in this stock, as he's pegged it to a price target of $16 per share -- a 55% upside from here. However, it's difficult to understand his claims that the stock trades at "a notable discount" to its peers when LivePerson has a 220 P/E and has been enduring a year of declining EPS and free cash flow, even as revenue continues to rise. There could be something to this stock, but you'd have to dig pretty deep to figure out what it might be.
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