Friday, March 11, 2011

Investopedia: Severe Static For Telco Providers

When a sector sits in the top 5% of sector performance, it is often a safe bet that momentum investors have crowded into the stocks, and expectations are running hot. Unfortunately, the very nature of the momentum game means that the stocks can get rocked at the first sight of cracks in the growth story.
Such is the case for companies in the telecomm equipment space these days.

Investors had been piling into stocks like JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq:JDSU), Finisar (Nasdaq:FNSR) and Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN) on the idea that the spread of smartphones and tablets is going to strain the networks of service providers even further and lead to significant capacity upgrades. To be fair, growth had been looking good off the bottoms of the recession and demand in China has been strong.

Unfortunately for investors, it looks like the sector has hit a pothole. Although JDSU gave pretty encouraging guidance not all that long ago, Finisar had a much less rosy outlook. Not only did Finisar cite weaker growth in China as a proximate cause, the company indicated it was an industry-wide phenomenon. Couple that with disappointing guidance from Ciena, and the stage was set for a significant pullback.

Please continue to the full piece:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Severe-Static-For-Telco-Suppliers-JDSU-FNSR-CIEN-GLW-OPXT0311.aspx

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