What Happened?
Shares of higher education company Laureate Education (NASDAQ:LAUR) jumped 14.6% in the morning session after the company reported strong third-quarter earnings that blew past analysts' EPS expectations. Its EBITDA also outperformed Wall Street's estimates. Similarly, EBITDA guidance came ahead. Overall, we think this was a decent quarter with some key metrics above expectations.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Laureate Education’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 5 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Laureate Education and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was about 2 months ago when the stock gained 8.8% on the news that the company announced a new share repurchase program to acquire up to $100 million of its common stock. This could indicate that management believes shares are undervalued. In addition, the announcement highlights management's focus on returning value to shareholders, as the repurchase reduces the total shares in circulation, improving the ownership stake of existing shareholders. This increase in ownership stake could result in shareholders receiving a larger portion of future profits or dividends.
Laureate Education is up 30.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $17.28 per share, has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Laureate Education’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,118.
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