EPS & Earnings ... Hits & Misses

[madrose1]

4/27 DRIV $48~$43~47~$44 beats by $0.02; guides lower (DRIV) 47.00 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.50 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Reuters Estimates consensus of $0.48; revenues rose 43.1% year/year to $78 mln vs the $76.2 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q2, sees EPS of $0.37, ex items vs. $0.38 consensus; sees Q2 revs of $70 mln vs. $70.47 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for FY06, sees EPS of $1.70, ex items vs. $1.69 consensus; sees FY06 revs of $300 mln vs. $300.41 mln consensus.

5/1 Piper Jaffray highlights Internet earnings; Top Picks for Q2 are DRIV, NFLX & YHOO : Piper Jaffray notes that the earnings season is nearly half over with most of the big cap names already reported. They say results so far have generally been good with in line to upside performances, yet not much reaction in the stocks. This is not very surprising as they are still in the "slow season" for Internet stocks, but they do believe that they have generally reached the trough of the slowdown that they see in the sector in the early part of the year. Firm thinks the conclusions from the earnings so far are encouraging: search continues to do very well and is still working for the advertisers. Firms top picks this week are YHOO, NFLX and DRIV. For YHOO, firm cits attractive valuation, noting that the analyst day is coming up on May 18, with search upside possible in 2H06. Firm thinks NFLX growth is accelerating and competition is marginalized; they say the recent secondary could allow company to expand faster and expect continued upside. Firm thinks DRIV clearly has more contracts at work than it has announced.