I think it's safe to say that the worst is over for this stock. The stock vaulted 16% today, and has gone up another 14% in the after hours. That's gotta hurt a short. "Gotta cover." I guess folks are expecting some good news from the conference call. Any good news that Ariba execs have to share, they're going to share that news. Finally, with CMRC saying their q2 pipeline is now fatter than q1 was, and with MSFT and SEBL beating estimates, software is now looking like a good place to park your money for the next 3 to 9 months.
The State of California is a big win. So was the Bristol-Meyers Squibb deal. Dutch Railway was a nice one too, though it's hard to guess how big that one is.
What's amazing is that, since the warnings bombshell ("revenue wreck") of April 2nd, the stock has troughed at about $4.50. The after hours figures show that the stock has increased 77% since then, and it's only a couple of weeks later. Talk about volatility. And now the pressure is pushing it the opposite way that it's been going for so long.
I wonder how long before those hordes of analysts are going to break from the herd and issue an upgrade? For the vast majority of the analysts, if you look at the timing of their down-grades versus the depth and duration of the stock direction, and the still-young rally up from penny-stockdom, they really came darn close to ringing the bells at the bottom.
The conference call is only seven hours from now, and I think that Ariba execs will attempt to educate analysts with regards to the future of the company (i.e. they have a strong product line that companies are saving tons of money by implementing). Call me the optimist, but things are looking up. It will just take time for the general economy to get back on track, and I'm confident that Ariba's client base will be growing a lot faster than the broader economy in the mean-time.
The only thing that's amazing to me is how meager was April 18th's stock gain, considering that Uncle Allan provided the necessary tonic that the economy needed. |
