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 Citrix Systems (CTXS) fell more than 11% during Thursday's intraday trading after the cloud solutions specialist turned in solid quarterly earnings results but a disappointing forward guidance.
So what: Fourth-quarter sales rose 8% year over year to $802 million, which translated to adjusted earnings of $1.04 per share. By contrast, analysts expected earnings of just $0.98 per share on higher sales of $805.89 million.
So far, so good, but Wall Street was much less enthused by Citrix Systems' full-year guidance, which calls for revenue growth of 8%-10%, resulting in a range of $3.15 billion-$3.21 billion -- well below estimates calling for 2014 sales of $3.25 billion. This, in turn, should translate to adjusted 2014 earnings of $2.85-$2.95 per share, which also falls short of estimates for earnings of $3.35 per share.
Now what: To Citrix's credit, the miss wasn't that bad, and the stock doesn't look terribly overpriced trading around 18 times management's expected 2014 earnings. That could explain why shares partially recovered some of their early losses to close down about 7%.
At the same time, however, Citrix still isn't cheap enough to compel me to buy, especially considering its sluggish growth. For now, that's why I'm content staying on the sidelines.
