Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Cisco, NetApp shares advance after hours

Agilent, Applied Materials each issue soft outlooks

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By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Cisco Systems Inc. and NetApp Inc. late Wednesday turned in quarterly results that were above Wall Street’s expectations, leading to a climb in shares of the tech companies.

But weak forecasts from Agilent Technologies Inc. and Applied Materials Inc. put pressure on each of their shares.

Cisco CSCO +1.05% shares rose 5% to $18.20 as the company said fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings were 47 cents a share, which was 2 cents ahead of the consensus estimate from FactSet. Revenue rose to $11.7 billion from $11.2 billion a year ago, with sales in the most recent period above Wall Street’s target of $11.62 billion.

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Fourth-quarter profit at Cisco was $1.92 billion, or 36 cents a share, compared with $1.23 billion, or 22 cents a share, a year earlier. Cisco also said it plans to raise its quarterly dividend by 75% to 14 cents a share. Read about Cisco's results.

At data-storage technology company NetApp, fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of 42 cents a share were higher than Wall Street’s forecast of 38 cents a share. Revenue fell to $1.45 billion from $1.49 billion a year ago. Analysts had expected $1.46 billion in sales for the recently completed quarter.

Shares of NetApp NTAP +1.04% were up 5.3% at $33.44.

NetApp also forecast fiscal second-quarter earnings of 45 cents to 50 cents a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion. Analysts currently expect earnings of 46 cents a share on $1.54 billion in revenue. Read about NetApp's outlook and results.

PetSmart shares PETM -0.07% leapt 5.7% to $71.31 as the pet-products retailer raised its yearly per-share earnings forecast to $3.30 to $3.40 from its previous forecast of $3.19 to $3.31 a share. The company also issued better-than-anticipated second-quarter results. See more on PetSmart's results, forecast.

Agilent, meanwhile, has “clearly entered an environment of much slower growth, resulting in deals taking longer to close and customers delaying their order deliveries,” said Chief Executive Bill Sullivan in a statement. The company’s shares A -0.02% stumbled 8.2% to $37.18 after the testing and measuring-equipment maker lowered its full-year outlook.

The company now expects earnings of $3.06 to $3.08 a share on revenue of $6.85 billion to $6.87 billion. Agilent had previously expected earnings of $3.18 to $3.24 a share, and sales of $6.94 billion to $7 billion. Read about results, forecast from Agilent.

Stock in chip-equipment maker Applied Materials AMAT +0.77% fell 3% to $11.45. The company forecast of per-share earnings of break-even to 6 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings of 12 cents a share. More on figures from Applied Materials.

Ahead of late trading, blue chips fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.06% ending 7 points lower at 13,164.78. The S&P 500 Index SPX +0.11% edged up 0.1% to 1,405 and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP +0.46% advanced 0.5% to 3,030.93. More about U.S. stocks in Market Snapshot.