SINA Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA)
On Wednesday after the market closed, Sina Corporation, a leading Chinese online media company, reported better than expected financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2015.
Earnings
The company reported third-quarter 2015 earnings of 15 cents per share, which outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 8 cents. Earnings were also better than 11 cents per share reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues increased 13.9% year over year to $226.3 million and were higher than management’s guided range of $193 million to $199 million. Revenues also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $220 million. SINA exited the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $1.9 billion compared with $2.2 billion on Dec 31, 2014. Cash provided by operating activities in the quarter was $107.1 million. Yahoo Finance
CEO Comments
Charles Chao, Chairman and CEO of SINA, commented on the quarter:
“We are pleased with SINA’s overall results in the macro headwinds. For Weibo’s business, we continue to see strong performance on both operational and financial fronts. Weibo continues to be on track to execute its core strategies to grow user base and enhance user engagement, capitalize the shift to mobile, and optimize advertising offerings to better serve the ever-growing customer community at various dimensions.
For SINA’s portal business, taking macro factors into account, our performance was largely in line with our expectation. We are encouraged by the progresses we made on monetizing mobile traffic and expanding our customer community. In addition, we will persist with our business endeavor to diversify our business models and implement the vertical strategy.” PR Newswire
SINA Technical Analysis
SINA began the year at $37.41 and closed on Thursday at $51.71 marking a 38% year-to-date gain. The stock put in 52-week highs of $61.25 in June and trended down before finding support near $36.20 in late August. More recently, SINA had been in an uptrend since late September reaching $52.55 on November 5 and then getting dragged down for several days by an overall market correction. This week, SINA has been strong, with daily higher highs, and higher lows on increasing volume. The stock reached a high of $52.50 on light volume during Wednesday after-hours trading. On Thursday, the stock opened at $50.40, just 3 cents below Wednesday’s close. It quickly bounced up through $52 and then sold off for 30 minutes before reversing near $49.75, which was a key support level on Wednesday. From there, the stock bounced up quickly thru VWAP and the moving averages and slowly moved higher topping out during the lunch hour at $52.66. For a long, SINA needs to get through and hold above $52 for more than 30 minutes with healthy volume. A sustained strong move through $52.55 could draw in buyers and start a new uptrend. On the short side, a break of $51.50 could quickly move to or through the next support levels at $51 and $50.25. A volume breach of $49.75 puts the sellers in control. Remember, levels should be watched closely and traded for continuation or reversal based on price action.
About SINA Corporation
SINA Corporation is an online media company serving China and the global Chinese communities. The Company operates its business through three business segments: SINA Portal, Weibo and other businesses. Its digital media network of SINA.com, SINA mobile and Weibo enables Internet users to access media and users generated content (UGC) in multi-media formats from personal computers and mobile devices and share their interests with friends and acquaintances. SINA.com offers professional content on each of its region-specific Websites and a range of complementary offerings. Its mobile portal, SINA.cn, provides news information and entertainment content from SINA.com customized for mobile users in WAP (mobile browser) and mobile application format, such as SINA News, SINA Sports, SINA Finance, SINA Entertainment and SINA Blog. Weibo is a social media platform for people to create, distribute and discover Chinese-language content. Google Finance
