Hold off on Symantec and Adobe for now

Article Excerpt

SYMANTEC CORP. $17.15 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; SI Rating: Average) (1-408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 789.3 million; Market cap: $13.5 billion; No dividends paid) makes software that protects computers from viruses and intruders. The popular Norton anti-virus program is its best-known consumer product. It also sells a range of products and services to businesses, including software and services for data backup and protection, as well as data-archiving to meet increasingly strict regulatory and compliance regulations. In the three months ended October 1, 2010, Symantec earned $266 million, or $0.34 a share. That’s down 10.1% from $296 million, or $0.36 a share, a year earlier. These figures exclude one-time items, such as the cost of integrating companies Symantec bought. Revenue was flat at $1.5 billion. Corporate customers account for two-thirds of Symantec’s revenue. The uncertain economy is prompting some of its clients to hold off on buying new software. The company continues to grow quickly, mainly by buying other software firms. For example, it recently…