What's happening: Shares of enterprise analytics and security vendor MicroStrategy (MSTR -9.71%) were up 15.7% as of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday following an upbeat earnings report that easily topped the Street's expectations.
Why it's happening: Revenue in the second quarter came in at $132.9 million, a 6% decline from a year ago but well ahead of the $128 million forecast. Earnings of $1.95 per share also crushed the consensus of $1.51 in earnings per share. The company also appointed a new CFO, Phong Le, effective in late August, following the previously announced retirement of current CFO Douglas K. Thede.
MicroStrategy has been able to successfully reduce costs in a big way, which boosts margins all the way to the bottom line. Case in point, even though revenue fell, gross profit actually increased compared to a year ago. Operating expenses also fell by nearly 40%. During the quarter, MicroStrategy announced the general availability of its MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise offering, which includes a slew of new features catered toward enterprise analytics. The company also debuted a new software development kit for third-party developers to integrate security capabilities into their mobile apps. All around, it was a solid quarter that is pushing shares to fresh 52-week highs.
