Why Seagate Technology PLC Shares Sank

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 Seagate Technology PLC plunged more than 12% Tuesday after the company's fiscal second quarter results missed expectations.

So what: Quarterly revenue came in at $3.53 billion, which translated to adjusted earnings of $1.32 per diluted share. By contrast, analysts were looking for earnings of $1.38 per share on sales of $3.56 billion.

For the current quarter, Seagate also called for revenue of "at least $3.4 billion," while adjusted margins are expected to remain flat over Q2. Analysts, on average, were modeling the current quarter's revenue at $3.46 billion.

Now what: Seagate has struggled to maintain growth in the face of stagnant PC drive sales, but investors were particularly alarmed that Seagate's cloud-centric enterprise offerings aren't picking up the slack.

However, Seagate president Rocky Pimentel was quick to point out much of the softness in the cloud industry was "really just due to the timing of the build-outs and planning of [Capital Expenditures]." If that's true, cloud products should still represent a fantastic long-term growth opportunity for Seagate, the shares for which currently trade at just 11.3 times trailing earnings and under 9 times next year's estimates.

Keeping in mind those forward estimates are likely to come down a bit given Seagate's light revenue guidance, I still think the stock presents an intriguing bargain for investors who buy on the pullback.

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The article Why Seagate Technology PLC Shares Sank originally appeared on Fool.com.

Steve Symington has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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