Shares of Santa Ana-based flash drive maker STEC Inc. rose on Tuesday as the company upped its outlook for the current and second quarter of the 2009. Investors in the company drove shares up almost 27 percent at the close of trading on a recent market value of about $1 billion. 

From the Q2 the company is expecting profits of $16 million to $14 million, up from a previous forecast of $10 million to $11 million. It is also hoping to sale $82 million to $84 million, which is up from an earlier outlook of $68 million to $70 million in sales. Wall Street analysts are expecting profits of $10 million on sales of $69 million for the company.

The credit for the outstanding outlook goes to STEC’s better than than expected sales of its lineup of drives. The company’s drives are built into the servers used by banks, insurance companies and many more that require to keep the track of a lot of data.

Since the beginning of the year, their shares have more than tripled, but those were under pressure last week after a B. Riley & Co. analyst downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy on a valuation basis, assuming that the company’s “historic run” might come to an end.

On Tuesday Needham & Co. analyst Richard Kugele however increased estimates for the company. He expects STEC to post sales of $83 million for the second quarter, which is up from a previous outlook of $68 million. He increased profit outlook to $15 million, up from $11 million, as well as upped his price target to $28 per share, up from $21 per share. Reportedly, on Tuesday STEC was trading at around $23 per share.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:58 am and is filed under Venture Capital News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.