Spending For The Future

Article Excerpt

SYMANTEC CORP. $17.52 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; SI Rating: Average) (1-408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 867.3 million; Market cap: $15.2 billion) reported 12.6% higher revenues in its second fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2007, to $1.42 billion from $1.26 billion. Excluding one-time write-downs, earnings per share rose 11.5%, to $0.29 from $0.26 a year earlier. Symantec continues to invest heavily in research — spending $221.1 million in the latest quarter, or a high 16% of sales. This spending will let it maintain its lead in the competitive and rapidly changing virus protection, firewall, vulnerability management, security services and intrusion detection industries in which it operates. Symantec held $2.02 billion in cash on September 30. It recently used $350 million of that cash to buy privately held Vontu, which makes data loss-prevention software. Symantec is a buy. buy…