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 Noah Holdings (NOAH 1.35%), an asset management advisory firm to wealthy individuals in China, dipped as much as 15% after reporting its third-quarter earnings results after the bell last night.
So what: For the quarter, Noah reported a 61% increase in net revenue to $41.5 million as net income soared 85% to $14 million, or an adjusted $0.27 per share. The number of registered clients increased 32% to more than 50,000 people as the aggregate value of assets under management improved 61% to approximately $2 billion. Wall Street, on the other hand, had been expecting EPS of $0.28, and that appears to be the reason for today's tumble.
Now what: Noah's shares have essentially quadrupled from their 52-week lows, so I'd like to think that a robust quarter beat was already priced into its shares. Even with impressive revenue and profit growth, Noah's needed to crush the Street's estimates if it hoped to keep its lofty valuation -- and that didn't happen. While Noah could easily rebound moving forward, I remain skeptical about placing too much of a premium on China-based companies given how erratic GDP growth has been of late. With that in mind, I'll personally be sticking to the sidelines for now.
