Emulex Boosts Everyone

Fibre Channel HBA maker, Emulex Corp. (Nasdaq: EMLX) surged Friday on the strength of its quarterly earnings report -- and took its closest competitors and allies in the sector along for the ride.

Despite a downgrade by Wells Fargo Van Kasper from a Strong Buy to a Buy rating on Friday, Emulexs stock eventually closed up $4.60, or 22.9 percent, to $24.65, on the day.

The company posted a steep net loss for its fiscal first quarter Thursday, but operating earnings of $7.5 million still crept ahead of forecasts. The results were a cent per share ahead of the $0.08 cents forecast by analysts surveyed by First Call.

For the first quarter ended in September, pro forma net income -- including deferred employee compensation, acquisition write-offs, and a one-time inventory writedown -- Emulex reported a net loss of $40 million, or $0.49 a share, compared with $12.9 million loss, or $0.17 cents, for the same quarter a year earlier.Excluding the one-time items, operating net income dropped to $7.5 million, down $0.09 per diluted share. Revenues slipped to $52.7 million, down 5 percent from the $55.5 million reported for the same quarter a year ago.

The news appeared to have a positive knock-on effect for other players in this sector, too, notably FC switch maker QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq: QLGC), which swung up 6.5 percent to close at $38.50.Other talk on the Street Friday suggested that QLogic might be about to close a deal with Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) for low-end Fibre Channel switches, which, if true, would be a shot across the bow of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD). Neither company would comment on the rumors.

Gadzoox Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: ZOOX) closed up 13.64% at 1.25; McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDT) finished up 4.73% at 13.51; Brocade ended the day up 9.73% at 24.59; and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) was up a pinch at 2.4% to close at 11.51.

The only company excluded from the good news was Inrange Networks (Nasdaq: INRG) which ended Friday down 6.45% at 5.22 -- a drop attributed to poor results (see Inrange Points Finger for Q3 Loss).

— Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch http://www.byteandswitch.com