What Happened: Shares of plant-based protein company Beyond Meat (NASDAQGS:NASDAQ:BYND) jumped 44% in the morning session after the company reported fourth-quarter results, which blew past analysts' revenue expectations. On the other hand, its full-year revenue guidance missed analysts' expectations and its operating margin missed Wall Street's estimates. What seems to be the saving grace and reason for the stock action, though, is the company's 2024 gross margin and implied operating profit guidance. Beyond Meat is calling for gross margin in the "mid to high teens range for the full year 2024", which is much better than Wall Street's projection of roughly 7%. Additionally, the company's guidance calls for a smaller operating loss than Wall Street expected. Overall, the results were fine and the guidance is highly comforting.
Is now the time to buy Beyond Meat? Find out by reading the original article on StockStory.
What is the market telling us: Beyond Meat's shares are very volatile and over the last year have had 53 moves greater than 5%. But moves this big are very rare even for Beyond Meat and that is indicating to us that this news had a significant impact on the market's perception of the business.
Beyond Meat is up 33.5% since the beginning of the year, but at $10.89 per share it is still trading 41.8% below its 52-week high of $18.71 from March 2023. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Beyond Meat's shares at the IPO in May 2019 would now be looking at an investment worth $166.24.