- Bruised Banks Salve Their Pain
- Eight Ways to Cut Back Without
- Where to Stash Short-Term Cash
- Don't let divorce ruin your cr
- Devices For E-Shoppers Can Thw
- You Can Build Excellent Credit
- How to Correct Mistakes on You
- More People Are Freezing Credi
- Credit Cards Offer Discounts o
- The Coming Credit-Card Crunch
- 4 Steps to Cut Credit Card Deb
- What Savers Should Do as Rates
Rightnow Technologies Falls As Co. Predicts Greater 1st-Quarter and 2008 Losses Than Analysts
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Rightnow Technologies Inc. plunged Thursday after business software company forecast larger first-quarter and full-year losses than Wall Street expected.
The company said late Wednesday that excluding stock-based compensation costs, it expects a loss of 10 cents to 13 cents per share in the first quarter, and a loss of 7 cents to 16 cents per share for the year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, expect the company to lose 4 cents per share in the first quarter and to break even for the full year. The analyst estimates exclude stock-based compensation.
Roth Capital Partners analyst Nathan Schneiderman said in a note to investors that the estimates were disappointing and "far below expectations."
He said the company is spending money on personnel training and on adding services. While the actions are driven by expectations of strong demand, the negative effect on earnings per share adds "yet another quarter of disappointing guidance to a string of such quarters in the recent past."
He lowered his 2008 per-share estimate to a loss of 13 cents from a profit of a penny, and his 2009 profit estimate to 18 cents per share from 30 cents per share.
However, Schneiderman advised investors to ride out the difficult patch. "A quarter or two of decent results and guidance should drive the stock higher," he said.
Goldman Sachs analyst Sasa Zorovic said RightNow anticipates considerably higher cost structure in 2008 than he expected.
He was encouraged by the company's strong cash flow and management's belief that its sales transition program seems to be completed.
Rightnow software is used to manage customer service through e-mail, live Internet communication and telephone. Other software helps build customer databases.
Rightnow shares fell $2.56, or 20 percent, to close at $10.23. They earlier hit a year low of $9.70. The stock has ranged from $11.57 to $23.38 over the past year.