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 Movado Group (MOV 0.55%) were up about 13% as of 1:15 p.m. Tuesday after the watchmaker announced better-than-expected fiscal-fourth-quarter 2015 earnings and encouraging guidance.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 1.2% year over year (4.3% on a constant dollar basis) to $133.9 million, which translated to a 13% decrease in net income per diluted share to $0.40. But analysts, on average, would have been happy with earnings of $0.20 per share on sales of $134.3 million. Movado also increased its quarterly dividend from $0.10 per share to $0.11 per share.
Now what: In addition, for the full fiscal year 2016, Movado expects net sales in the range of $590 million to $600 million, and net income of $48.5 million to $51.0 million, or $2.00 to $2.10 per diluted share. Keeping in mind that assumes no further significant fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, the latter range was well ahead of Wall Street's consensus for fiscal 2016 earnings of $1.89 per share. But analysts were also hoping for higher sales of $602.6 million.
For now, I'm personally not intrigued enough given Movado's sluggish growth to dive into the stock myself. But I think at the very least, today's strong results and Movado's solid balance sheet -- with no debt and $200 million in cash at the end of the quarter -- make it a worthy addition to my watch list (no pun intended). If it continues to successfully implement its plans over the next few quarters to return to sustainable, profitable growth, Movado could still reward patient, long-term investors.
