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: Stun gun maker TASER International, Inc. (AXON -0.74%) stock jumped 10% in early trading today and is still holding strong with about a 9% gain near midday.
TASR Price data by YCharts.
So what: It's really hard not to use terms like "shocked" the market, but we will just go with "surprised," which is what TASER did today, reporting more than double last year's quarterly profits in the same period. Revenue also climbed 24% to $44.8 million, driven by huge growth in demand for body cameras for police officers, as well as strong sales growth of its TASER products. Sales of its AXON cameras, and accompanying data storage and processing services, increased a whopping 73% in the quarter as well, to $6.4 million.
Now what: The company's backlog for its AXON products also grew strongly in the quarter, with total bookings of $22.9 million in the quarter. Frankly, there looks to be huge demand for on-body cameras and the software to process and store the digital video files, after the highly publicized shootings and deaths of a number of civilians at the hands of police officers.
There is likely to be heavy political pressure on many police departments around the country to outfit their officers with this technology, and that could be a real lift for TASER, which already has strong ties to policing through its namesake product. Even after today's big gains, it might be worth putting TASER on your watchlist.
