New Oriental Education Shares Plunged: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Chinese private educator New Oriental Education (NYS: EDU) plunged today by as much as 20% after the company announced first-quarter earnings results.

So what: Revenue for the quarter tallied up to $272 million and earnings per share came in at $0.58. Both of these figures beat the consensus estimate, which was looking for revenue of $263.8 million and earnings of $0.57 per share. Total student enrollments rose by 14.6% year-over-year to roughly 807,700.

Now what: Although the results beat estimates, the stock sold off but recovered somewhat, to close with a 12% loss for the day. Forward-looking guidance called for second-quarter revenue of $124.4 million to $129.1 million, compared with the consensus of $127.6 million. With the company growing top-line revenue by 41.4% and net income by 45.5%, I'm not quite so sure what investors are so disappointed with.

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At the time thisarticle was published Fool contributorEvan Niuholds no position in any company mentioned. Check out hisholdings and a short bio.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended buying shares of New Oriental Education & Technology Group. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

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