As we learned last quarter, iRobot
What analysts say:
- Buy, sell, or waffle? Eight analysts now follow iRobot, up one from last quarter. Buy ratings outnumber holds 5 to 3.
- Revenue. How substantial will the sales gains be? Wall Street predicts 39% growth to an even $55 million.
- Earnings. Unfortunately, the Street also thinks the company lost money -- $0.16 per share.
What management says:
Big news came in small packages at iRobot this quarter, with the company's award of a DARPA contract to develop LANdroids (no relation to the esteemed Mr. Calrissian of Star Wars) for the military. The tiny, deck-of-playing-cards-sized robots look like miniature versions of the SUGV that iRobot has already put together in conjunction with SAIC
In other news, CEO Colin Angle began a 10b5-1 trading plan to sell off nearly 10% of his stake in the company over the course of a year. Angle owns 7% of the shares outstanding, so with the trading plan, he intends to float about 0.7% of all shares outstanding. Doesn't sound like a lot, but I could certainly see this putting some downward pressure on the stock price.
What management does:
Not that iRobot needs the pressure. Gross margins were declining steadily (at least, up until last quarter, when they ticked back up).
9/06 |
12/06 |
3/07 |
6/07 |
9/07 |
12/07 |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gross |
36.3% |
36.9% |
36.1% |
35.6% |
32.7% |
33.2% |
Operating |
1.4% |
0.0% |
(1.3%) |
(2.7%) |
(8.0%) |
(0.1%) |
Net |
3.1% |
1.9% |
0.5% |
(1.0%) |
(6.4%) |
3.6% |
One Fool says:
So what's behind iRobot's expected surprise outperformance in Q1, and its equally expected underperformance in Q2? Two trends play into the news. On the plus side, the company's new line of Roombas and their relatives have been flying off the shelves at retail outlets such as Best Buy
Now throw in Angle's (pre-planned, automatic, out of his control, yada, yada, yada) selling spree, and new competition from General Dynamics'
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