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 Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. (NVMI +1.20%) jumped more than 10% in Wednesday's early trading, then settled to close up nearly 8% after the company turned in solid first quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 26% year over year to a company record $34.7 million, which translated to adjusted net income of $6.9 million, or $0.25 per diluted share. Analysts, on average, were modeling adjusted earnings of only $0.22 per share on sales of $34.19 million.
Now what: Nova President and CEO Eitan Oppenhaim added, "Our recent R&D investments, which were aimed at enhancing and diversifying our products offering, are clearly paying off and have established us as a leader in Optical Metrology for advanced process control."
Investors are right to applaud today's beat, which was strong by any measure as earnings exceeded even the high end of Nova's expectations. With shares currently trading for only 10 times next year's expected earnings, I think the stock could still prove an attractive bet for long-term investors.
