Westell Technologies: Pump Up the Volume

AURORA, Ill. (TheStreet) -- Westell Technologies (WSTL Quote) shares tumbled Thursday on above-average volume despite an earnings beat after the company's CEO offered cautious comments for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Westell Technologies late Wednesday said it swung to a fiscal second-quarter profit of $2.9 million, or 4 cents a share, compared to a net loss of $5.1 million, or a loss of 7 cents share, in the same quarter a year ago. The telecom equipment maker said revenue rose nearly 10% from a year ago to $47.4 million. Both earnings and revenue from the fiscal second quarter beat the lone analyst target, according to Thomson Reuters.

Investors posting on Internet message boards attributed Thursday's selloff to comments made by Westell CEO Richard Gilbert, who said that the outlook for the second half of the company's fiscal year will be soft, although that is due more to seasonal effects rather than economic conditions. Bullish investors said they were buying on the weakness, according to other message board posts.

Shares of Westell Technologies were falling by 36 cents, or 22.1%, to $1.28. Earlier in the session, the stock touched an intraday low of $1.20. More than 748,000 shares changed hands by 9:45 a.m. EDT Thursday, compared to the stock's 50-day average daily volume of 363,000, according to the Nasdaq.

Westell Technologies has a 67.2 million-share float with a short interest float of only 0.1% as of Sept. 25, according to Yahoo! Finance. Only 5% of the company's shares are held by insiders with another 33.5% owned by institutions.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in New York.

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