Harmonic (HLIT) Soars 9.8%: Is Further Upside Left in the Stock?

Harmonic (HLIT) shares soared 9.8% in the last trading session to close at $14.37. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 3.5% loss over the past four weeks.

Harmonic was recently selected as the strategic technology partner of Charter Communications to deploy virtual CMTS technology for next-gen broadband services. The deal with the second largest cable operator in the United States and a leading broadband communications firm providing video, Internet and voice services will likely boost top-line growth for HLIT.

Harmonic's industry-leading CableOS broadband platform will facilitate groundbreaking multi-gigabit network convergence and deployment efficiency advantages. In particular, Charter Communications will deploy Harmonic's CableOS platform in a distributed access architecture for converged multi-gigabit connectivity for flexible and sustainable broadband services.

This video services provider is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.09 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +12.5%. Revenues are expected to be $157.9 million, up 7.1% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Harmonic, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on HLIT going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Harmonic belongs to the Zacks Communication - Components industry. Another stock from the same industry, AudioCodes (AUDC), closed the last trading session 2.2% higher at $14.48. Over the past month, AUDC has returned -18.8%.

AudioCodes' consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $0.26. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of -21.2%. AudioCodes currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).

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