It hasn’t been a good day for Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) today, and it’s mostly thanks to some unpleasant news that came out of its latest earnings call. Investors sent Acuity sliding in Tuesday afternoon’s trading thanks to that report that offered a few bright spots but not enough to prevent a sell-off. Acuity’s earnings report delivered a mixed bag for investors.
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While it turned in a beat on earnings, coming in at $3.06 per share against projections that called for $2.73, the same couldn’t be said for its revenue performance. Acuity brought in $943.6 million in revenue, which was short of analyst projections looking for $958.46 million. Two of the biggest segment winners for Acuity were its lighting and lighting controls division and its intelligent spaces group. Lighting and lighting controls were up 3.2% against the previous year. Intelligent spaces, meanwhile, added 16.4%.
Despite this, Neal Ashe—Acuity’s CEO—remains upbeat, noting “strong cash flow” from some operations and that the company has created “permanent value for shareholders through repurchases.”
A look at the last five days in trading for Acuity Brands shows an interesting trend. Before the earnings report was released, Acuity had mostly plateaued at around $181 per share. There was even a slight uptrend in the making, as it went from $180 to around $184 over the four days before today. But the earnings report sent Acuity on its plunge. A bit of a rally kicked in, though, and brought Acuity off its lows for the day.
