Westell Soars; Alliance Data Dips

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Westell Technologies (WSTL) was a small-cap standout in afterhours action after the Aurora, Ill.-based maker of broadband equipment reported a 65% year-over-year jump in its fiscal second-quarter profit.

Late Wednesday, Westell posted earnings of $4.8 million, or 7 cents a share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, up from a profit of $2.9 million, or 4 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 8% in the latest quarter to $51.1 million from $47.4 million last year. The single analyst covering Westell was looking for a profit of 4 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"We are very pleased to be reporting increases in revenues and earnings, along with very strong cash flow," said Rick Gilbert, Westell's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "This demonstrates excellent execution and progress across the entire company."

The stock was last quoted at $2.73, up 26.4%, according to Nasdaq.com, on volume of more than 25,000. Based on their regular session closing price of $2.16, the shares were already up 70% so far in 2010., and look poised to break through a 52-week high of $2.42 set on Sept. 15.

Another big gainer among small-caps was Netlist (NLST), which was quoted at $3.77, up almost 11%, on volume of nearly 80,000. The Irvine, Calif.-based company issued a press release after the close hyping a demonstration of "100 virtual machines" running on a single server using its HyperCloud memory technology.

Based its regular session close at $3.41, Netlist's stock was down about 35% year-to-date. The company is expected to report its third-quarter results on Nov. 11.

Among the more high-profile names getting a lift on their quarterly results were Ebay (EBAY), advancing more than 7% at last check, and Netflix (NFLX), gaining almost 9%..

Taking a hit in late trades was Alliance Data Systems (ADS), which was last quoted down 4.5% at $59.86 on volume of around 180,000.

The Dallas-based provider of marketing products and services topped Wall Street's expectations with its third-quarter core profit of $1.55 a share on revenue of $702.4 million, but its outlook looks like a disappointment. Alliance said it now sees core EPS of $5.70 for the whole of fiscal 2010, and a profit on the same basis of $6.75 per share in fiscal 2011. The current average analysts' estimates are for EPS of $5.82 and $6.94 for the respective periods.

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