Shares of Bitauto Holdings Ltd. (BITA, Financial) declined on Monday after the company reported third-quarter results. EPS of 26 cents beat estimates by three cents. Revenue of $352.4 million beat expectations by $18.39 million and increased 55.8% year over year. Further, the gross profit reached $227.4 million, a 54% increase from the prior-year quarter.
Chairman and CEO William Li was pleased with theprogress made across the business lines.
“With our ongoing efforts across Bitauto'sthree key enhancement areas for 2017 – traffic and content, conversion rate, and monetization – continuing to pay off, we remain optimistic about our performance for the full year and beyond,” he said.
Looking forward, the company projects fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $360.7 million to $368.2 million, representing a 37.2% to 40.1% increase from the comparable quarter of 2016.
Shares of Marathon Patent Group Inc.Ă‚ (MARA, Financial) gained about 5% on the back of the company reporting its financial results for the third quarter. The company posted a loss of 23 cents. Revenues of $163,000 registered an increase of 300% year over year. Further, the company agreed to acquire Global Bit Ventures Inc., a digital asset tech company, which is related to cryptocurrencies.
Northern Technologies International Corp. (NTIC) shares jumped more than 15% after the company reported third-quarter EPS of 30 cents on revenue of $10.9 million, registering a 14.5% year-over-year increase.
“Healthy global demand is driving sales of Zerust corrosion inhibiting solutions in both North America and China as well as at most of our joint venture countries,"Â President and CEO G. Patrick Lynch said.
In China, the company saw sales grow 36.2% in the fourth quarter, which resulted in $7.23 million in revenue for full fiscal 2017.
“We are optimistic that these sales and profitability trends will continue," Lynch said. "Natur-Tec also contributed to higher sales, with an increase of 20.4% for the fiscal 2017 fourth quarter, and 26.6% for the full year, while finishing the year with two consecutive quarters of operating profits. The significantly higher sales and the profit contributions from both China and Natur-Tec helped increase NTIC’s annual operating profit for fiscal 2017, despite $857,000 of legal expenses incurred during the year.”
Looking ahead, the company expects net sales between $46 million and $47 million for fiscal 2018. Further, it expects net income in the range of $5 million to $5.3 million, or between $1.10 and $1.15 per diluted share.
Disclosure: The author holds no positions in any stocks mentioned.
