(Aug 5) Coursera fell 3% after soaring 21% yesterday.
On the one hand, Coursera blew away analyst targets for Q2 revenue, producing $102.1 million where Wall Street had expected only $91.5 million. On the other hand, though, Coursera appears to have missed analyst predictions on profit entirely. According to a writeup fromTheFly.comthis morning, instead of the predicted $0.11-per-share loss, Coursera lost $0.38 per share.
Wait, what? Coursera lost three times as much money as it was "supposed" to, and its stock is going up? At first glance, it certainly does look that way. So let me unravel the mystery for you.
When analysts make earnings estimates, they most often refer not to earnings calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) but rather topro formaearnings. And this fact can create some confusion among investors around earnings time as to whether a company "beat" or "missed" earnings.
So in the case of Coursera, analysts forecast that the company would lose $0.11 per sharepro forma.But the earnings number TheFly and other financial outlets refer to -- the $0.38-per-share loss -- was the company'sGAAPloss. If you back out all the one-time charges (or what analysts consider one-time charges) from Coursera's results, though, the company'spro formaloss for the quarter was only $0.05 per share.
Or in other words, comparing apples to apples, this was not an earnings "miss," but an earnings "beat."