Akamai Technologies 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 cloud platform provider Akamai Technologies (NAS: AKAM) jumped by more than 14% today after reporting fourth-quarter and full-year results last night.

So what: Revenue rose 14% to $324 million, while adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.45. CEO Paul Sagan said, "We believe our Content Delivery and Cloud Infrastructure solutions are stronger than ever, and we look forward to further enhancing our Cloud Infrastructure portfolio," thanks to a couple of recent acquisitions.

Now what: Akamai guided first-quarter sales higher than expected, with a range of between $305 million and $313 million, handily topping the consensus of $304.8 million. Wall Street analysts were mostly bullish on the figures, impressed that the company was able to "buck the trend" of slowing growth. They also said that Akamai is well-positioned as an Internet infrastructure provided that will continue to benefit from the Web's growth.

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