ATML Earnings Action

Late Friday evening press releases are often good times to bury horrible, no good, very bad news. But for CyberSource Corp. (CYBS) that just isn’t the case. The board of directors approved a new stock repurchase program on Friday Nov. 21 which authorizes the payment solutions firm to buy an additional $15 million in common stock through March 2009. The announcement comes on the heels of a precipitous share price drop of 42.9% from a Nov. 4 intra-day trading high of $12.74 and is on top of $9.97 million used to buyback 704,925 shares year to date. It may not seem like a whole lot given that there are 69.53 million shares outstanding and the stock trades 982,166 shares a day, but it does represent a significant portion of the $73.16 million in cash on its balance sheet. Taking into account that as recent as Oct. 23 CyberSource was able to reiterate fourth guidance of non-GAAP net income of between $11.4 to $11.7 million or $.16 per share and full 2008 full year earnings of $.63 to $.64 a share on revenue of $225-$226 million, the board seems to be sending a pretty bullish signal to the market.