MORE RE: IDXX - What quarter?
IMO this is a serious market overreaction, but I also think that the markets are too squeemish to notice for a while, like until financials come out and we get into the next quarter or two, and somebody figures out what quarters are being discussed (see below). Whether this is short term or not kind of depends on your definition of short term. To a day trader, short term is hours, and long term is days. To a long term biotech stock holder, short term is the next three to twelve months, and long term is forever.
I do not think the dead cat short term day traders will do well on this one selling today. I think that an opportunistic stock holder like myself will do well over the next three to twelve months. It might come up sooner, but I'm willing to wait and leave the money in for awhile. I do not think it can fall much farther. I figured cash on hand at about $6.20 per share and book value at about $7.82 per share. Keep in mind that this is still a profitable company, just not as profitable in this quarter, (which ever one they are talking about?), as expected.
I see some confusion in what quarters are being discussed. This company has not yet issued financials for the last quarter of '96, ending 12/31/96, as far as I can find in the news or at the SEC. I haven't found anything that says what their fiscal year is, but from the latest 10Q at the SEC, I think it matches the calendar year. My biggest concern is that the press release discussing their "announcement" discussed the revenue and profits of the first quarter of '97 and distributor shipments in the first and second quarters of '97.
"...after the biotechnology company said it expects its first quarter earnings to fall significanlty below analysts' estimates..... IDEXX said the earnings shortfall was due to lower-than-anticipated sales of certain veterinary diagnostic products and a decision to decrease distributor shipments in the first and second quarters."
How do they know distributor demand so well for a second quarter that isn't here yet. I don't think that they have changed fiscal years to end 9/30/96, as they haven't put out their 10K (annual) based on that. The last financial SEC filing was a 10Q in 11/96 for the Q ending 9/30/96.
Something doesn't jive here, and I suspect that the press release may have the quarters confused. Being as this is derived from an "announcement" which doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere in writing, I'd bet that it was verbal and just not quite reported correctly. Of course I should know better than that because reporters always get things right, except for the spelling of "significanlty".
Uhh, what happened to the fourth quarter of '96? No one seems too concerned about it. |
