Trulia (NYSE:TRLA), a top real estate search engine, is a magnet for volatility. When the company came public in September 2012, the stock surged 41% on its first day of trading. Then on its third-quarter earnings report, the shares plunged nearly 30%.
Today, Trulia kept up its wild ways, with the stock up 23% to $29.24 (the IPO price was $17). The company reported its fourth-quarter results, which showed the business continues to grow at a hefty pace.
Revenue soared by 76% to $20.6 million, which beat the Street’s expectation of $19.1 million. There was a loss of $1.6 million, or 6 cents a share, down from $2.1 million, or 30 cents a share in the same period last year. On an adjusted basis — accounting for one-time items — the loss was 3 cents, which compared to the consensus estimate of 2 cents.
With the real estate market rebounding, Trulia continues to see gains in traffic. Unique monthly users jumped 50% to 23.6 million. As should be no surprise, a big boost came from mobile, with the number of unique visitors on handheld devices up 119% to 5.8 million.
For the next quarter, Trulia forecasts revenues of $20.8 million to $21.2 million. The consensus estimate was for $19.3 million.
To help keep up the growth, Trulia has been expanding its platform into other categories, such as rentals and mortgages. For example, the company recently struck a partnership with Primedia’s apartment guide, which should provide a nice boost to traffic.
However, investors should remain cautious. Again, the stock has proven to be quite volatile. So, it’s a good bet there will be more opportunities to get shares at a lower price at some point.
Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPO Playbook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He is also the author of “How to Create the Next Facebook” and “High-Profit IPO Strategies: Finding Breakout IPOs for Investors and Traders.” Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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