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 Sykes Enterprises (SYKE) initially jumped more than 27% during intraday trading Tuesday after the customer contact management specialist reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 14.8% year over year to $322.1 million, which translated to 25.4% growth in adjusted earnings to $0.39 per share. By contrast, analysts were only expecting adjusted earnings of $0.28 per share on $307.54 million in sales.
In addition, Sykes raised its fourth-quarter guidance for revenue in the range of $330 million to $335 million, with adjusted earnings per share in the range of $0.39 to $0.43. For reference, analysts were modeling higher adjusted Q4 earnings of $0.50 per share, on lower sales of just $322.25 million.
Now what: Investors didn't seem to mind the weaker fourth-quarter earnings guidance, particularly as management explained Sykes' higher-than-expected demand would require incremental investments in ramp costs in Q4 on top of the carryover in ramp costs from the third quarter.
All things considered, it was definitely a solid quarter for Sykes. If the company can keep up its momentum and with shares currently trading at just 13.7 times next year's estimated earnings, I think long-term investors could still stand to be rewarded even after today's pop.
