Avid isn't releasing its next quarterly results until the week of July 28th, according to First Call, so it looks like the "event" is a long way off. Then again, it shouldn't be too hard for the company to meet First Call's mean EPS estimate of $0.11/share considering they just had an $0.08/share quarter. I also think the likihood of a pre-announcement that the company won't make analyst's earnings estimates is pretty low; after all, we're only talking pennies here. And this current quarter (post NAB convention) is typically a very good one for Avid, so they'll probably announce a modest increase in both revenues and earnings.
If Avid meets its earnings estimate with relatively flat sales revenues, maybe some investors will begin to see the reality of Avid's nonlinear market potential in '97 and going forward. It's a very different situation than when Avid owned the market and was ripping up the charts pre-'96. Investors continue to speculate on this stock as if it were 1995 all over again--NOT. This is why I don't short stock; it's not what you think the company's worth, it's what the market thinks it's worth, and often the market has a very different opinion than yours. I'll quote (paraphrase?) Warren Buffet here: "I know what will happen, but not always when."
A side note to Avid fans. The last several calls I've made to Avid Technical Support have been very impressive. My calls were answered within a minute, sometimes within a few seconds by a very knowledgeable technical support staffer. In each instance, if they didn't fully understand the issue, they placed me on hold for a minute and came back with a definitive answer. As an Avid user for over 4 years, my calls to TS are infrequent, but when I do call in, the questions/issues I have are not elementary. Contrast this against a year or so ago, when you could hardly ever get through (over an hour on hold once) and rarely get accurate or timely responses from anyone in TS. This was a dark period for Avid, whose stock had crashed as the company announced loss after loss. The comments in online forums from users were scathing (Avid's technical support/monitored forum on America Online, disappeared back then). Avid has really cleaned up their act and is supporting their customers in the manner you would expect from a market leader with a premium pricing model. My hats off to you, Avid!
Good luck,
D. Kuspa |
