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 Trimble Navigation Limited (TRMB 1.27%) rose 14% Wednesday after the company turned in better-than-expected fourth quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 16% year-over-year to $599.2 million, which translated to adjusted net income growth of 53% to $0.43 per share. Analysts, on average, were looking for earnings of just $0.37 per share on sales of $567.38 million.
Now what: CEO Steven Berglund weighed in, "While the fourth quarter supports the anticipation of an improved organic growth outlook for 2014, the environment continues to be comparatively uncertain with variations of regional economic performance, continuing deferrals of investment, and continued constrained government funding."
Even with that caveat, the company felt comfortable providing current quarter guidance for revenue between $610 million and $630 million, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.40 to $0.43. By comparison, analysts were modeling Q1 earnings of $0.42 per share on sales of $616.92 million.
As it stands, Trimble stock doesn't look particularly expensive trading around 18 times this year's estimated earnings and with a reasonable price to earnings growth ratio of 1.33. But it's not overwhelmingly cheap, either, so I'm not convinced investors would be wise to immediately dive in after the pop. For now, I'm content staying on the sidelines and waiting for a more attractive entry point.
