- Shares of Stec Inc. plunged Wednesday after the maker of data storage devices said first-quarter revenue would be as much as 53 percent lower than what Wall Street expected.
- Late Tuesday, Stec forecast first quarter 2010 revenue of $33 million to $35 million and an adjusted loss of 11 cents a share to 13 cents per share. Analysts expected revenue of $70 million and an adjusted profit of 20 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.
- Stec said an inventory carry-over at its largest customer, EMC Corp., will hurt sales in the first half of 2010. (identical issue in November, but with a different time frame this time around) The company does not expect "any meaningful production orders" from the client during this time.
- Stec, based in Santa Ana, Calif., was downgraded by JPMorgan analyst Mark Moskowitz to "Neutral" from "Overweight." "We had been too optimistic," he said in a research note. "The disappearance of sustainable revenue momentum up-ended our prior view that Stec was the high-growth story" in small to mid-cap stocks.
- Moskowitz said the outlook shows that the troubles with EMC isn't a one-quarter problem. (bingo)
- Wedbush Securities' analyst Betsy Van Hees said investors should remain on the sidelines till there is more clarity on adoption rates of solid state drives (SSDs), customer production ramps, single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash pricing trends and the competitive landscape.
What a year for the stock! Almost a "round trip" at this point. Note the May 2009 gap which at one point looked like it would "never" be filled, has done so in 9 months.
No position