WebSideStory
The company doesn't appear to be feeling too pretty right now. The second-quarter financial results released today reported revenues rising by 62% year over year, which is tepid compared with last quarter's 93% sales growth. And GAAP earnings showed a $0.13 loss per share, whereas last year's comparable quarter brought a $0.07 net profit per share.
But if you back out nothing but the now-mandatory stock-based compensation costs of $2.9 million, you can raise EPS by $0.16 and land in the black. That's right -- the difference between a GAAP profit and loss here can be explained with nothing but stock options. The company looked much tastier when it didn't have to tell us about these things.
As for the smaller sales boost, WebSideStory is about to hit some tough year-ago comparisons. Revenues ticked up by 13.5% sequentially, which compares rather nicely with last quarter's 14.5% sequential sales growth and looks even better next to the 3.6% comparable growth two quarters ago.
With all that in mind, management isn't panicking, and it simply refined earlier full-year guidance rather than raising or lowering it -- narrowing the revenue range to between $62.9 million and $64.4 million and pegging EPS at a loss of $0.46. Having traded as high as $20.83 over the past year, the stock is now looking to beat its 52-week low of $10.94, down about 10% at midday Friday.
But nothing in the earnings report was really unexpected, nor was it cause for much concern. WebSideStory faces some tough competition in the likes of Google
Further Foolishness:
- The previous quarter looked much better.
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Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like. Foolish disclosure is doing fine without options.
