Friday, June 29, 2018

Analysts Expect Dixie Group Inc (DXYN) to Announce $0.02 Earnings Per Share

Dixie Group Inc (NASDAQ:DXYN) has been assigned an average broker rating score of 2.00 (Buy) from the one brokers that cover the stock, Zacks Investment Research reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a buy recommendation.

Brokers have set a twelve-month consensus target price of $5.00 for the company and are forecasting that the company will post $0.02 earnings per share for the current quarter, according to Zacks. Zacks has also given Dixie Group an industry rank of 243 out of 255 based on the ratings given to its competitors.

Get Dixie Group alerts:

A number of analysts recently issued reports on DXYN shares. ValuEngine cut Dixie Group from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 3rd. Zacks Investment Research raised Dixie Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 1st.

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Russell Investments Group Ltd. lifted its position in Dixie Group by 25.1% during the 1st quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 603,820 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $1,661,000 after acquiring an additional 120,979 shares during the period. Boston Partners lifted its position in Dixie Group by 16.2% during the 1st quarter. Boston Partners now owns 763,620 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $2,100,000 after acquiring an additional 106,600 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its position in Dixie Group by 3.4% during the 1st quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 1,813,701 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $4,988,000 after acquiring an additional 60,229 shares during the period. Finally, Royce & Associates LP lifted its position in Dixie Group by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Royce & Associates LP now owns 1,549,912 shares of the textile maker’s stock worth $5,967,000 after acquiring an additional 82,982 shares during the period. 61.87% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Shares of Dixie Group traded down $0.05, reaching $2.30, during trading hours on Friday, according to MarketBeat Ratings. The stock had a trading volume of 500 shares, compared to its average volume of 15,674. The stock has a market cap of $37.99 million, a PE ratio of -33.57 and a beta of 0.14. The company has a quick ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 2.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62. Dixie Group has a fifty-two week low of $2.20 and a fifty-two week high of $4.75.

Dixie Group (NASDAQ:DXYN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 3rd. The textile maker reported ($0.17) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.16) by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $98.86 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $99.70 million. Dixie Group had a negative net margin of 2.87% and a negative return on equity of 4.16%. sell-side analysts anticipate that Dixie Group will post 0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Dixie Group Company Profile

The Dixie Group, Inc manufactures, markets, and sells floorcovering products for residential and commercial applications primarily in the United States. It offers residential carpets and custom rugs, specialty carpets and rugs, residential tufted broadloom and rugs, and broadloom and modular carpet tiles.

Get a free copy of the Zacks research report on Dixie Group (DXYN)

For more information about research offerings from Zacks Investment Research, visit Zacks.com

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Should You Buy Red Hat After Its Post-Earnings Plunge?

Shares of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) tumbled during after-hours trading on June 21, after the enterprise software company followed up�its first-quarter earnings beat with tepid guidance. Its revenue rose 20% annually to $813.5 million, beating expectations by about $6 million. Its non-GAAP net income climbed 28% to $133 million, or $0.72 per share, clearing estimates by $0.03.

But for the current quarter, Red Hat expects just 14% to 15% sales growth, compared to the consensus estimate of 18% growth. Its forecast for 5% non-GAAP EPS growth also missed expectations for 16% growth. Red Hat's full-year revenue forecast for 16% to 18% missed the consensus estimate of 19%, but its earnings guidance for 15% to 17% growth exceeded expectations.

Servers in a data center.

Image source: Getty Images.

Despite the recent pullback, Red Hat's stock remains up nearly 20% for the year, and it still isn't cheap, at over 40 times this year's earnings. So, is it time to sell Red Hat, or does this dip represent a long-term buying opportunity?

What does Red Hat do?

Red Hat provides open-source software products -- including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) platform, and JBoss middleware -- to enterprise customers. Most of Red Hat's software products are free, but it sells subscriptions for support, training, and integration services for those products.

Red Hat's subscription revenue grew 19% annually to $712 million last quarter and accounted for 87% of its top line. Within that total, its subscription revenues from infrastructure-related services rose 14% to $522 million, while revenues from application-development and emerging technology services rose 37% to $189 million.

Red Hat benefits from the rise of hybrid cloud deployments, in which large enterprises move part of their data to the public cloud while retaining some data in on-premise servers. It holds partnerships with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) in that market.

Red Hat integrates its OpenShift platform with Microsoft's Azure, the second largest cloud infrastructure platform in the world. That integration makes it easier for enterprise developers to shift between Azure, a public cloud platform, and on-premise environments. It also integrates OpenShift into IBM's software and cloud services, which helps Big Blue modernize its portfolio with Linux "containers" -- which isolate applications from the rest of the system.

A graphical representation of cloud computing.

Image source: Getty Images.

During the quarter, Red Hat reported a 48% year-over-year increase in deals worth�over $1 million -- and 70% of those deals included one or more components from its higher-growth application-development and emerging technologies unit. Mid-market deals worth over $250,000 rose 138% annually. Red Hat also added over 100 new customers to its Linux container platform OpenShift, as its subscribers for Ansible, which automates software tasks, jumped about 70% to over 1,000.

Understanding the tailwinds and headwinds

Red Hat's core business is well-poised for growth as the hybrid cloud market expands. The company's unique business model and partnerships with enterprise giants like Microsoft and IBM give it plenty of room to upsell and cross-sell other services.

Last quarter, 25 of Red Hat's largest deals that were up for renewal renewed in aggregate at over 120% of their previous values. 70% of its cross-selling deals also cleared $1 million.

Yet two main headwinds could throttle Red Hat's near-term growth. First, Red Hat expects a strengthening dollar to reduce its full-year reported revenues by $50 million. Second, an ongoing shift from physical deployments to container environments is throttling Red Hat's middleware growth. Red Hat partly offsets that softer growth with the stronger growth of its emerging technologies unit, but it's still causing its sales and earnings growth to decelerate.

Should you buy Red Hat on the dip?

Red Hat is a compelling long-term play on the hybrid cloud and the modernization of IT systems. Unfortunately, the stock's valuations aren't supported by its growth forecasts. Therefore, investors should wait for the stock to drop to lower levels before starting a position.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Bandwidth Inc (BAND) Director Henry R. Kaestner Sells 37,500 Shares

Bandwidth Inc (NASDAQ:BAND) Director Henry R. Kaestner sold 37,500 shares of Bandwidth stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.27, for a total transaction of $1,472,625.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link.

Shares of Bandwidth opened at $39.87 on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Bandwidth Inc has a twelve month low of $18.05 and a twelve month high of $40.83. The stock has a market cap of $698.68 million and a PE ratio of 81.37.

Get Bandwidth alerts:

Bandwidth (NASDAQ:BAND) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 2nd. The company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.09 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $53.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $47.19 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.22 earnings per share. Bandwidth’s revenue was up 33.8% on a year-over-year basis. analysts anticipate that Bandwidth Inc will post -0.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Barclays PLC bought a new position in Bandwidth during the 1st quarter valued at about $262,000. Northern Trust Corp bought a new position in Bandwidth during the 1st quarter valued at about $263,000. Wedbush Securities Inc. bought a new position in Bandwidth during the 1st quarter valued at about $269,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new position in Bandwidth during the 4th quarter valued at about $277,000. Finally, Archon Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Bandwidth during the 1st quarter valued at about $531,000. 21.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on BAND. KeyCorp reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Bandwidth in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd. Robert W. Baird reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $30.00 target price (up from $28.00) on shares of Bandwidth in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. ValuEngine upgraded shares of Bandwidth from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, April 2nd. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Bandwidth from $28.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 3rd. Finally, Dougherty & Co set a $40.00 target price on shares of Bandwidth and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 24th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. The stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $38.00.

Bandwidth Company Profile

Bandwidth Inc operates as a cloud-based software-powered communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provides in the United States. The company operates through two segments, CPaaS and Other. Its platform enables enterprises to create, scale, and operate voice or text communications services across mobile application or connected device.