Hold off on new buying

Article Excerpt

SYMANTEC CORP. $15.22 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; SI Rating: Average) (1-408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 814.5 million; Market cap: $12.4 billion) makes software that protects computers from viruses and electronic attacks. The popular Norton anti-virus program is its best-known product. In the three months ended July 3, 2009, Symantec earned $73 million, or $0.09 a share. That’s down 57.6% from $172 million, or $0.20 a share, a year earlier. If you exclude unusual items, including writedowns of securities and gains on the sale of assets, per-share earnings fell 15.0%, to $0.34 from $0.40. That fell just short of the $0.35 a share that analysts were expecting. As well, the company continues to spend around 15% of its revenue on research, so it’s more profitable than it looks. Revenue fell 13.2%, to $1.43 billion from $1.65 billion. Analysts were expecting $1.49 billion. The recession has prompted businesses to put off investments in computer software and storage products. However, Symantec was able to partly offset this…