Why Dycom Stock Just Died

What happened

Shares of telecommunications infrastructure provider Dycom (NYSE: DY) stock are diving -- down 16% as of 10:35 a.m. EDT after reporting a swing and a miss on both sales and earnings for its fiscal Q1 2019. (And no that's not a typo. Dycom is about a year ahead of everyone else when it comes to its fiscal calendar).

Looking to report Q1 sales of $736.1 million, Dycom delivered $731.4 million this morning instead. Expected to report a pro forma profit of at least $0.68 per share, Dycom said its adjusted earnings were only $0.63 -- and its GAAP profit a mere $0.53 per share.

So what

Sales declined 7% year over year in Q1, and organic sales "growth" was negative 10%. (Revenues from "storm restoration services" and "contract revenues from acquired businesses" helped to minimize the decline in organic sales).

Diluted earnings per share, meanwhile, declined a much steeper 57% year over year, falling to the aforementioned $0.53 per share.

Now what

Still, Dycom remains profitable, and its guidance for the rest of this year suggests that's not going to change in the near term -- if not quite so profitable as investors had hoped. For fiscal Q2 2019 (that's the quarter we are in now), Dycom says it expects to earn between $1.02 and $1.17 per share, GAAP, on sales of between $830 million and $860 million. For the full year, Dycom's guidance calls for $3.81 to $4.70 per share in profit on sales between $3.23 billion to $3.42 billion.

These numbers are below what Dycom had previously promised, however, and below Wall Street's expectations. The full year guidance, for example, is roughly $1 below previous guidance, and a full $1 below what Wall Street had been telling investors to expect.

Hence the sell-off.

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.