Technology

Analysts (and Investors) Abandon Emulex

Emulex Corp. (NYSE: ELX) is getting absolutely butchered after its fiscal third-quarter earnings report and its guidance were soft. This maker of network connectivity products has not been doing too well, and things do not look any better in the near term either.

Earnings came in at $0.15 per share, but the GAAP loss after items was $0.09 per share after a Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) settlement. Third-quarter revenue was a mere $109.7 million. We had a Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.15 earnings per share (EPS) and closer to $113 million in revenue.

Where things get worse is in guidance. Fourth-quarter revenues were put at $94 million to $104 million. The consensus was closer to $115.67 million, but even that consensus revenue estimate was going to be a drop of 4% in sales from a year earlier. The company’s guidance is for earnings to be from breakeven to as high as $0.05 — far shy of the $0.18 EPS consensus.

Analysts have blasted the company. RBC Capital Markets had only a Sector Perform rating, but the target was cut to $7 from $8. Piper Jaffray cut its rating to Neutral from Overweight, and the price target was slashed to $6 from $10. The boutique firms also downgraded Emulex, to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens and to Underperform from Buy at D.A. Davidson.

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Emulex shares were down 26% at $5.27 on almost 5 million shares in mid-morning trading on Thursday. The stock also hit a 52-week low of $4.98 on Thursday.

This company’s trend is no friend for its investors. About the only good news seen was that the current litigation process between Emulex and Broadcom has effectively ended.

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