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 Interface (TILE -3.66%) jumped as much as 17% today after the modular carpet company reported better than expected earnings following the market close on Wednesday.
So what: Fourth-quarter revenue rose 8.1% to $272.1 million, highlighted by an 11.8% increase in sales in the Americas and 13.4% growth in Asia-Pacific. After pulling out one-time items including a $12 million loss on debt retirement, net income was $15.8 million, or $0.24 per share, beating Wall Street's estimate by $0.07.
Now what: Slow and steady improvement across the business helped drive the earnings beat this quarter. Gross margin increased by 40 basis points to 33.6% and SG&A expenses fell to 23.8% of sales from 26.6% a year ago.
This was the first time all year that earnings beat estimates, so I wouldn't call the strong results a trend yet. Plus, shares are trading at 30 times trailing earnings, a high multiple for a fairly slow-growth company. I like where the company's operations are headed, but the high valuation will keep me out of shares after today's bounce.
