Vishay Shares Soar After Strong Earnings Report
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of electronics components manufacturer Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (NYSE:VSH - news) soared more than 14 percent on Thursday before retreating slightly in the afternoon, a day after the company posted much-better-than-expected profit gains in the first quarter.
In afternoon trading Vishay shares on the New York Stock Exchange were up 6 7/16, or about 9 percent, at 78 1/4, down slightly from the day's highs. Earlier, the shares were up by 9 5/16, at 81 1/8 after the company's earnings came in well above what analysts had expected, boosted by strong sales across all of the company's product offerings, particularly in capacitor sales, analysts said.
``It really was a blowout quarter,'' Needham & Co. analyst Ted Kundtz said of Vishay. ``Growth drivers are really very much in tact -- you're looking at cell phones, computers and autos all being the major growth drivers.''
``Just in cell phones alone, if the unit volumes go up 48 percent or 50 percent this year, in terms of numbers of units, the number of passive components that go into that will go up 66 percent,'' Kundtz said. ``Same thing with computers and same thing for autos.''
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Net income for the first quarter was $74.2 million, or 84 cents per diluted share, versus $818,000, or 1 cent per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.
The Wall Street consensus estimate was 68 cents per share, according to research firm First Call/Thomson Financial.
Vishay sales topped $538 million compared to sales of $423 million in the year-ago period.
Kundtz said Vishay is seeing increased price leverage as well as operating leverage, including great demand for its resistor business, which he said is one of the slowest growing areas.
``Really it's the entire product line almost across the board, especially in the capacitor side and now increasingly on the resistor side are all very strong,'' said Dick Jacobs, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott Inc.
``Prices are strong, backlogs have been building and orders are up,'' Jacobs said.
``Siliconix revenues were also up over 40 percent, which was very strong and profitability was excellent,'' he added, referring the Vishay's publicly traded subsidiary Siliconix Inc. (NasdaqNM:SILI - news).
Siliconix earned $25.7 million, or 90 cents per share, compared with $9.7 million, or 33 cents per share in the first quarter of last year.
Siliconix revenues rose to $114 million from $81 million.
Siliconix shares were off 4 3/16 trading at 76 1/2 on the Nasdaq stock market. |
