Why eGain Shares Jumped

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 eGain popped more than 20% Thursday after the cloud customer engagement solutions provider reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that beat estimates.

So what: Quarterly revenue rose 16% sequentially and 69% year over year, to $18 million, and net income came in at $1.9 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $0.12 per diluted share during the same period last year. For reference, analysts were expecting a loss of $0.02 per share on sales of just $14.54 million.

In addition, eGain says it expects fiscal 2014 total revenue growth of 20% to 25% year over year, which equates to a range of roughly $70.7 million to $73.6 million. That's also ahead of analysts' average expectations for 2014 revenue of $68.46 million.

Now what: eGain's cloud segment revenue should lead the way next year with expected growth of 40% to 45%, and investors are understandably pleased as they watched their company swing to an unexpected profit. It's hard to value the stock on traditional metrics based on its past losses, but if eGain can keep growing profitably over the long term in a growth industry as promising as the cloud, shares at today's prices could ultimately prove to be a bargain down the road.

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The article Why eGain Shares Jumped originally appeared on Fool.com.

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