Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, March 21, 2014

Article Excerpt

SYMANTEC CORP., $18.20, Nasdaq symbol SYMC, fell 13% on Friday after it fired Steve Bennett, its president and CEO. The company said the decision resulted from an ongoing review and wasn’t in response to any single event. Symantec has appointed board member Michael Brown as its interim CEO. The company sells computer-security technology, including anti-virus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers. Symantec is in the midst of a major restructuring that mainly involves cutting jobs and streamlining its product lines and marketing operations. The plan should help the company expand its profit margin (operating income divided by revenue) to over 30.0% by 2017; in the current quarter, which ends March 31, 2014, Symantec expects its profit margin to range from 24.5% to 26.0%. However, Symantec’s revenue growth has suffered recently, as it retrains its sales staff. That has disrupted the closing of new deals. In addition, concerns over surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency are hurting overseas sales. The company is…