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CyberArk Slated For ‘Solid’ Q1; FireEye Sales ‘Remain Suppressed’

CyberArk Software ‘s ( CYBR ) first-quarter improvement on health care and higher education sales wasn’t reflected at FireEye ( FEYE ), where product sales “remain suppressed” amid the transition to subscription offerings, an analyst said Thursday. Both are set to report first-quarter earnings late Thursday. Mid-morning on the stock market today , FireEye and CyberArk stocks were each down a fraction, and Dougherty analyst Catharine Trebnick expects solid and in-line reports, respectively, from the duo. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters project CyberArk to report $43.4 million in sales and 16 cents a share in adjusted earnings, up 32% and flat, respectively, vs. the year-earlier quarter. Demand for CyberArk’s bread and butter, its privileged account management, remains robust, Trebnick wrote in a research report. Trebnick rates CyberArk stock a buy and has a 50 price target on the shares. Several health care bake-offs put CyberArk at the top of vendors’ lists. In one deployment alone, CyberArk’s enterprise vault solutions are being used in 20,000 servers. Higher education, too, is paying dividends, Trebnick wrote. “A number of chief information security officers in this area have selected CyberArk’s solutions, as high turnover in their IT departments (due to staff members often being graduating seniors) drives the need for credential management,” she wrote. For FireEye, however, the first quarter represents another stalled period, as the company transitions to subscriptions — FireEye-as-a-Service and Mandiant incident response — from product sales. FireEye’s network and endpoint product sales have’t improved, Trebnick wrote. “With the HX (endpoint), we did not pick up significant traction, despite recent changes to include exploit detection,” she wrote. “According to one source, the installed base looks to be slow (in) adopting the next generation of code, and many are still running old versions.” But FireEye’s channel is driving increased combination sales, pairing FaaS and Mandiant. The consensus of 35 analysts models $171.8 million in sales, up 37% year over year, and a 50-cent per-share loss minus items widening from a 48-cent loss in the year-earlier quarter. FireEye previously guided to $163 million-$183 million in Q1 billings, which would be up 14% at the midpoint of guidance. Trebnick has a neutral rating on FireEye stock.

Qorvo Sees June ‘Up Significantly’ Despite Apple iPhone Albatross

Qorvo ( QRVO ) skirted Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) iPhone shortfall by regaining Samsung Galaxy S7 share and riding the Chinese carrier aggregation trend, Needham analyst Quinn Bolton said Thursday after the chipmaker’s blowout fiscal Q4. In morning trading on the stock market today , Qorvo stock was up 8%, trading near a three-week high above 48. But shares are down 12.5% year to date on Apple’s weakness. Qorvo’s largest customer — widely assumed to be Apple — accounts for a third of its total sales. Shares of rivals Broadcom ( AVGO ) and Skyworks Solutions ( SWKS ) were up a fraction Thursday morning, after  Qorvo’s fiscal Q4 beat  late Wednesday. Last week, Skyworks topped fiscal Q2 expectations, but its fiscal Q3 sales guidance lagged by about $50 million, helping send its shares down 6.9%. For Qorvo, the March quarter wrapped up with $608.1 million in sales and $1.04 earnings per share minus items, beating the consensus of 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $599.2 million and 92 cents. Year over year, sales and EPS fell 4% and 6%. Current-quarter guidance for $650 million in sales and $1.05 EPS ex items was also ahead of analysts’ views for $628.6 million and 96 cents, but that would be down 6% and 12% vs. the year-earlier quarter. On Thursday, at least four analysts boosted their price targets on Qorvo stock. Offsetting Apple’s 24% Fall Mobile sales declined 5% sequentially to $465 million, “driven by content gains on the Galaxy S7 platform that mostly offset a 24% quarter-over-quarter decline in sales to its largest customer,” Bolton wrote in a research report. Industrial and defense products rose 9% to $142 million in sales, also helping offset the hit from Apple, Bolton wrote. Bolton boosted his price target on Qorvo stock to 53 from 50 and reiterated his buy rating. Qorvo is “outperforming smartphone peers with content and share gains,” he said. Behind Apple, Samsung and Huawei are Qorvo’s largest mobile customers, Qorvo CFO Steven Buhaly said on the company’s earnings conference call late Wednesday. Qorvo “took the medicine” in December when Apple iPhone sales began slowing, he said. Outside Apple, mobile sales will be “up significantly” in the June quarter, Steven Creviston, Qorvo’s president of mobile products, said on the call. He credited growth in China and the carrier aggregation trend for the likely growth. In that segment, sales to Chinese ODMs (original design manufacturers) account for 40% of revenue. Carrier aggregation in China is driving demand for Qorvo’s radio-frequency chips, Qorvo CEO Robert Bruggeworth said on the call. Rosenblatt analyst Jun Zhang expects Qorvo to swipe Skyworks’ share on that trend. At Taiwanese MediaTek, Skyworks accounts for 80%-85% of all LTE chipsets, Cowen analyst Timothy Arcuri wrote in a report. He, too, expects Qorvo to aggressively gain share, boosting his price target to 55 from 50 but keeping his market perform rating.

AMC Networks Q1 Beats On Content Licensing, International Growth

AMC Networks ( AMCX ) stock jumped Thursday after the pay-TV and video streaming content provider reported Q1 revenue and EPS minus items that topped Wall Street views. AMC Networks sells on-demand TV shows to Netflix ( NFLX ) and Amazon.com ( AMZN ). Pay-TV companies such as Comcast ( CMCSA ), meanwhile, pay AMC programming fees for current season shows. AMC Networks stock was up 6% in morning trading in the stock market today , near 67.50. New York-based AMC Networks said Q1 earnings per share minus items rose 13% to $1.99, while revenue increased 5.7% to $707 million. Analysts had modeled $1.89 and $694 million. “AMC Networks beat revenue and EBITDA expectations, boosted by content licensing (likely Hulu) and improving trends internationally,” Stan Meyers, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said in a research report. AMC Networks’ cable channels include AMC and IFC. Its shows include some big hits, such as “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead.” “International revenue was ahead of expectations at $109 million vs. consensus estimate of $107 million,” said Benjamin Mogil, an analyst at Stifel, in a report. Even with Thursday’s gain, AMC Networks stock is still down 9% in 2016. AMC Networks has an IBD Composite Rating of only 37 out of a possible 99.