"Tomorrow's waiting; let's journey there together
Yesterday is gone, gone, but tomorrow is forever"
-- From "Tomorrow Is Forever," by Dolly Parton, 1970

Just like Dolly, Mr. Market cares not a whit for what already happened -- but tomorrow, however, is forever.

That's what happened to networking chip designer Atheros Communications (Nasdaq: ATHR) last night. The company, true to form, reported world-beating first-quarter numbers and the stock price barely moved. Record sales of $215 million, 144% above the year-ago period, wasn't enough to inspire an after-hours takeoff. Neither did non-GAAP earnings of $0.57 per share, up from $0.06 a share a year ago.

But Atheros had another trick up its sleeve. When CFO Jack Lazar issued second-quarter guidance in the ensuing conference call, Atheros got an immediate 6% boost -- and that one had legs, sending the stock up by more than 8% this morning. It's amazing what a little future perspective can do.

And I don't blame traders, investors, or market makers for loving the guidance given. In a seasonally slow quarter, Atheros expects to grow sales by about 9.5% quarter-over-quarter, and net income should jump past the $0.60 mark per share. The news was so good, it helped lead to an early morning boost for competitors like Marvell Technology Group (Nasdaq: MRVL), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), and Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM), albeit on a smaller scale than Atheros' own pop.

Atheros is riding on a couple of hot trends, shipping wireless networking chips to smartphone and tablet makers. CEO Craig Barratt sees heavy interest in his products from "ARM (Nasdaq: ARMH) based platforms running new operating system such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Chrome," and some of the biggest names in hot handsets are Atheros customers too.

Now, Atheros is not a cheap stock after climbing 157% over the last year -- but sometimes you get what you pay for, and what you pay for here is the promise of excessive growth. As long as the world hungers for more, better, faster wireless networking, Atheros is likely to deliver the goods. And after that, the company isn't afraid of change, either: recent forays into classic Ethernet controllers and powerline networking are starting to pay dividends.

I'm heading over to CAPS to take a bullish stand on Atheros, along with 97% of over 1,550 members with an opinion on this stock. If you want to do the same -- or voice your opposing theory -- it's both fun and free to follow my lead.