Why Alere Inc. Shares Popped
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 Alere , a diagnostic device manufacturer and services company to the health care industry, jumped as much as 12% after announcing its third-quarter earnings results.
So what: For the quarter, Alere delivered net revenue growth of 9% to $753.9 million, essentially in line with the Street's expectations, as adjusted EPS improved to $0.59 from $0.43 in the year-ago period. This figure, however, trumped forecasts that had called for $0.53 in EPS quite handily. The big boost came from the company's professional diagnostics segment which, when adjusted for currency fluctuations, produced organic growth of 9.1%. Revenue at its health information solutions segment, on the other hand, fell by less than 1%.
Now what: Chalk this up as another good, but not great, quarter for Alere, which has beaten estimates now in three straight quarters after missing them in the previous two. While relatively inexpensive on a forward P/E basis, Alere's growth rate is slowing, so it'll depend on how well its new products are received as to whether or not it can motor even higher. Earlier today, it did announce the availability of its rapid detection HIV-1 antigen and HIV-1/2 antibody test, so clearly it has the potential for steady sales growth; the question is whether that growth comes to fruition. In the meantime, I feel Alere's potential may be fully baked into its share price here and will continue to watch it from the sidelines.
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