SYMANTEC CORP. $16.55 - Nasdaq symbol SYMC

SYMANTEC CORP. $16.55 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (1-408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 751.0 million; Market cap: $12.4 billion; No dividends paid) makes computer-security software, including the popular Norton antivirus program. It also sells products and services for email filtering, data backup and other business-related uses. In addition, Symantec offers data-archiving software that helps its clients meet increasingly strict regulatory and compliance standards.

In the three months ended September 30, 2011, Symantec’s earnings rose 33.8%, to $182 million from $136 million a year earlier. Earnings per share jumped 41.2%, to $0.24 from $0.17, on fewer shares outstanding. If you exclude unusual items, mainly asset writedowns and restructuring costs, earnings per share would have risen 14.7%, to $0.39 from $0.34. That matched the consensus earnings estimate.

Sales rose 13.6%, to $1.7 billion from $1.5 billion. The company gets 52% of its sales from overseas. If you disregard the positive impact of exchange rates, sales would have risen 9% in the latest quarter.

Concerns about identity theft and online intruders continue to push up sales of Symantec’s products. Demand will continue to increase as more businesses switch to cloud computing. That’s where data and software is kept on central servers that users access over the Internet.

Symantec is a buy.

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