Israeli CRM and billing systems company Amdocs (DOX) has bested analyst estimates and come through with a record quarter. The company reported record revenue of $820 million in Q2, up 15% over Q2 ‘07, solidly beating the consensus estimate of $811.06 million. Non-GAAP net profit grew 9.9% to $132.5 million, or $0.61 per share, above the analysts’ consensus of $0.60. In addition, Amdocs raised Q3 guidance as well.

Globes quotes from a Merrill Lynch report on the earnings: “We attribute the strong performance to the first complete quarter of AT&T (T) revenue recognition and better than expected execution at Sprint (S). This is the second consecutive quarter that management has raised guidance while other telecom-exposed names have been much more conservative. We note that the company has a backlog of $2.42 billion, providing management good visibility into the next few quarters.”

Merrill put a $43 target on the stock, a huge premium to the $28-29 range the stock is trading in. The company seems to really be hitting on all cylinders and with another increase in guidance, once rationale comes back into the market, Amdocs potentially could hit the Merrill target.

Aaron Katsman, IsraelNewsletter.com

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in DOX. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 7/24/08.

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn more.

Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

Share with others:

012.Smile (SMLC): “The firm noted that revenue decline reflects a significant year-over-year decline in revenues from hubbing services and a 14% year-over-year decline in the average shekel-dollar exchange rate.” (see article here). Earnings release here. See what IOI has written about SMLC and why some asset managers think it’s cheap.

Voltaire (VOLT): Stock up over 25% this week. Company reported earnings the market liked yesterday. Revenues are up, earnings are up, and margins up a lot. Earnings release here.

Answers.com (ANSW): Stock down big this week off of earnings expectations. They didn’t look too good. Earnings release here. Answers took a $2.0M charge on terminating the Dictionary.com acquisition. Traffic was down sequentially to Answers.com while WikiAnswers seems to be chugging along nicely.

Zoran (ZRAN): IOI Portfolio Member Zoran gets an upgrade from PiperJaffray. The banking firm “predicts Zoran’s growth will bottom out in the second quarter and then rebound as consumers transition to high-definition DVD players and sales of its chips and other products climb.” See our coverage of the firm here.

Ormat (ORA): Israeli geothermal player, Ormat, sells 3M shares this week in a block trade to Lehman Brothers.

NICE (NICE): Anti-rogue trader product unveiled by Israeli security play, NICE.  NICE’s Actimize unit is a leader in employee fraud detection and trading surveillance systems at large global firms and is rumored to have detected the massive fraud at Societe Generale.  See what we wrote about NICE recently. NICE reports on May 14th.

Share with others:

Lots of Israeli companies reporting earnings. Here are some highlights:

Perrigo (PRGO): Tightened up 2008 guidance higher and beat revenues projections. Earnings release here. Early look at the stock is that investors aren’t impressed.  See our recent commentary on PRGO’s generic nicotine gum.

Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA): Earnings report here. Quarter over quarter growth looks to be 24% and profit down from CoGenesys charge.

RRSat (RRST): Smacked yesterday after an earnings release. The 20% drop came after putting up pretty good top lines numbers. Margins came down quite a bit.

Alvarion (ALVR): Stock popped after the wireless backhaul firm put up pretty good revenue numbers and a narrower loss. The stock jumped 15%. Earnings report here.  See our analysis of the recent turbulence in the wireless market.

Ness Technologies (NSTC): Revenues up 27% year-over-year and earnings up 20%. Earnings report here.

Partner Communications (PTNR): Earnings report here. Total revenues up 12% and Net Income up 24%.

Share with others:

Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com

At IOI we are not in the business of making fun of analysts who actually take a stand before an earnings report and tell investors what they think, even if they are wrong. In fact we applaud the move. It’s not very helpful to upgrade or downgrade a stock after earnings when the stock has already moved one way or another. Was it helpful to know that Google (GOOG) was upgraded this past Friday morning after the company blew past earnings and was up $70 in pre-market trading. Investors want information that they can use, before a difference making event happens to a company.

Last night the Israeli  hi-tech company Zoran (ZRAN) ,which makes chips for DVD players and multimedia systems, came out with numbers and provided a much rosier outlook than analysts had predicted. Ten days ago a Jefferies and Co.analyst downgraded Zoran stock down to ‘undeperform’, and slashed his numbers for the rest of the year as well.

Zoran predicted revenue of between $130 million and $135 million in the 2nd quarter, ahead of the $127.1 million that was the consensus. The company also said that they expect that margins for DTV and mobile phones will improve for the rest of the year.

IOI recently laid out the case for Zoran. Our subscribers would have known what the catalysts are going forward. With that being said, I still want to commend the Jefferies analyst for taking a position. He may have been wrong, we all are from time to time I am told, but at least he was proactive.

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in ZRAN, fund has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 4/22/08.

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn more.

Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.

Share with others: