Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Market Gems:Stocks w/Strong Earnings and High Tech. Rank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: debra vogt who wrote (43088)	6/4/1999 12:35:00 AM
From: Burjis S.	Respond to of 120523

DEBRA ...... IDTC has been beaten to a pulp recently and has been frustrating to say the least, here is some interesting info on it. IDT CORP (IDTC) 19 -1 3/4 IDTC reported earnings this morning, and although they did their best to put the best foot forward, by listing the rising revenues and rising EBITDA figures, the market goes right to the net income column, which dropped from a year ago $0.15 per share to today's report of $0.06 per share. On the face of it, this looks bad. But on digging, it isn't that bad. The depreciation and amortization line (the DA portion of EBITDA) is huge now, a result of capital investments, presumably for network investments. Also significant is the fact that IDTC paid no income taxes last year. These two items alone bear most of the weight of the lower earnings. Long term investors can forgive these problems, because both are unavoidable. But disturbing to us is the sentence buried deep in the press release about the internet division. The line states "IDT's Internet division reported revenues of $4.2 million, just below the prior quarter's revenues of $4.3 million, and a 19% decrease from $5.2 million in the same quarter last year. " Without growth in the internet business, IDT is just a long distance phone company. We'd like to see better growth here, or find out more about the decline. Also bothersome is the fact that you have to listen to the conference call to get a real breakdown of the revenue by division. They listed caller origination revenue of $5.1 million, carrier revenue of $75.3 million, and prepaid card revenue of $96.1 million. You have to dig to separate these lines out, it would have been nice to have them in the release. To add to our frustration, the company refused to discuss the upcoming IPO of Net2Phone (NTOP) in the conference call. As many investors in IDTC are playing it because of the upcoming spinoff, it would be nice to get more details. Nevertheless, IDT investors may find it worthwhile to listen to the 54 minute conference call, using RealPlayer audio. The conference call is listed at www.streetfusion.com