Harman Shares Jumped: 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 Harman Kardon and JBL parent Harman International (NYS: HAR) were sounding quite nice to investors today as they rose as much as 19% in intraday trading after the company reported its fiscal first quarter.

So what: Sometimes the math of a big gain like this is pretty simple. In its first quarter, Harman revealed that revenue rose 26% from last year, to $1.05 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share, meanwhile, nearly doubled from last year, to $0.69. Analysts were looking for $0.51 in EPS on just $961 million in sales. When a company tops expectations by that much, investors are bound to get rowdy.

Now what: Harman's CEO said that the company is in a "new growth phase" and that it has "strong footholds in each of the BRIC countries." That doesn't sound too bad to me. Investors on the sidelines may want to wait to see if the action calms down rather than trying to chase the rocket-ship gain today, but for current shareholders, this certainly looks like a quarter to be excited about.

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