Another Dog of a Day for Ruckus Stock
Ruckus Wireless (RKUS) stock was sinking on Tuesday, down 25% in afternoon trading after it reported lighter-than-expected first-quarter earnings and a revenue outlook that disappointed investors.
Back in November, Yahoo! Finance profiled the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based wi-fi equipment maker during another rough day for the company: Its IPO. Ruckus, whose logo features a barking canine, touted its debut on its own website that day, declaring, "Who Let the Dogs Out? The New York Stock Exchange, That's Who." Unfortunately, that sentiment was reflected in Ruckus's dog of a debut, as the shares ended the day down 18% from their $15 offer price.
Before Tuesday's rout, however, Ruckus was actually up more than 25% from its IPO price, closing Monday at $19 a share. Still, the stock had sunk 17% year-to-date and 11% over the past three months. And the shares had the prologue to their largest one-day drop ever during after-hours trading Monday, as the company reported earnings per share of 2 cents (excluding some costs) on revenue of $57 million. Although the top-line increase was 27% year-over-year, the analyst consensus was for around $63 million in revenue on EPS of 4 cents.
Nearing the close, the stock was trading at $14.18, once again under the offer price and with a market value one-quarter below where it was only a day ago.
For the current fiscal second quarter, Ruckus projected revenue of $61 million to $64 million and EPS of 3 cents to 4 cents, a big miss from the consensus, which had been around $67 million for revenue and a profit of 4 cents a share.
Ruckus, which generates a large chunk of its revenue from foreign customers, cited weakness in China and delays by some North American carriers it serves as being factors in its softer-than-expected report.
"Our Q1 revenue was impacted by delayed deployments with several service provider customers in the Americas, as well as challenging marketing conditions in China," said CEO Selina Lo on the earnings call, according to the Seeking Alpha earnings call transcript. "I’m disappointed with our Q1 revenue performance. However, our fundamentals remain intact, and we have confidence in our long-term growth drivers."
Ruckus also saw a downgrade Tuesday as Lazard Capital gave the stock a "neutral" rating from its previous "buy" following the earnings.
Competitor Aruba Networks (ARUN) was also down more than 23% Tuesday after its own earnings report and outlook disappointed.
