Alcatel-Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) is surging after earnings. Amazingly enough, the short sellers greatly lightened up in the new data that came out of the NYSE last night. There was a drop of about 40% in the short interest. Alcatel reported adjusted fourth quarter earnings per share of $0.25, which is more than double what the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.11 EPS. The company is also reorganizing its work force and that will include bringing back outsourced jobs. Another issue is that it will license patents through a third party.
Shares closed at $1.94 on Thursday and the 52-week trading range is $1.39 to $6.63. There is almost 90 minutes left of pre-market trading and we already have close to 4 million shares traded in the pre-market and the stock is surging by almost 15% to $2.23.
After many disappointments, this one feels like it came a bit out of the blue when you consider the woes of Europe and that it is now based in Europe when so many other tech and communications outfits have been reporting bad numbers.
JON C. OGG
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