Bouncing back from Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s weakness, the S&P 500 managed to rally 1.26% higher today. It was the biggest market-wide rally in over a month, largely spurred by a modest pullback in the U.S. dollar.
It wasn’t a wildly bullish day across the board, however. Box Inc (NYSE:BOX), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) all fell into the proverbial quicksand on Thursday and just couldn’t fight their way out of it.
Box Inc (BOX)
You have to give credit where it’s due — Box’s CEO isn’t going down without a fight.
The rumble started shortly after the cloud-computing company posted Q4 results on Wednesday afternoon. Though revenue was up 61%, reaching $62.6 million and topping estimates of $58 million, the BOX stock booked a hefty loss of $1.65 per share.
Initially that figure was reported as a miss compared to Thomson Reuters’ data. CEO Aaron Levie, however, complained — after the fact — that the way analysts had come up with the outlook wasn’t the way it was supposed to be calculated. Incredibly, Thomson Reuters acquiesced and changed the expectations — again, after the fact –– from an anticipated loss of $1.17 to an anticipated loss of $1.99 per share. In that light, Box actually beat estimates.
So why was BOX in the gutter on Thursday, to the tune of 11%? Largely because Aaron Levie erroneously thinks what really matters to the market is predictable and consistent. Whether it was a beat or not was irrelevant to investors who are now far more concerned about slowing revenue growth for the coming year. Last year’s 74% clip is likely to fade to only a 30% growth rate for Box in fiscal 2016.
Intel Corporation (INTC)
It’s not exactly a big secret that Intel has been struggling to remain relevant an a post-PC world where handheld devices are becoming the new norm. Nevertheless, the company clearly reminded INTC shareholders of that struggle this morning when it warned the market to expect about $1 billion less in revenue for the current quarter than had been previously anticipated.
Per the latest guidance, Intel expects to generate $12.8 billion in sales for the first quarter of 2015. Prior estimates had pegged the top line at $13.7 billion, give or take, for the current quarter.
Spooked investors sent INTC stock tumbling nearly 5% for the day.
SINA Corp (SINA)
For the second day in a row SINA stock stumbled, continuing a selloff that began in the wake of the mixed message delivered after the close on Tuesday. Though earnings jumped because of the gain SINA reported on the sale of some of its investments, operating earnings fell on a year-over-year basis, missing estimates.
All told, the Chinese internet company reported earnings of 10 cents per share for its fourth quarter, down from the 11 cents per share from the same quarter a year prior, and well shy of the 15-cent EPS SINA stock analysts expected.
The real spark for Wednesday’s 3.3% slide and today’s 4% tumble, however, may have been the tepid 2015 outlook that was unveiled with Q4’s numbers. SINA now says it’s looking for revenue of somewhere between $800 million and $900 million, versus a consensus estimate of $890 million.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
