Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) Surged More Than 5% in Pre-Market Trade in Response to Earnings Release

Shares of Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) inclined 5% in morning trade Wednesday, soon after the leading online destination for automobile consumers in China, declared its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017.

Second Quarter 2017 Financial Highlights:

• Net Revenues raised 13.3% year-over-year to RMB1,562.0 million ($230.4 million), surpassing the high end of the Company’s original guidance of RMB1,437 million ($212.0 million).
• Media services and leads generation services revenues raised 36.5% year-over-year to RMB1,459.1 million ($215.2 million).
• Net Income attributable to Autohome Inc. rose 49.7% year-over-year to RMB517.7 million ($76.4 million).

Second Quarter 2017 Operational Highlights:

• Continued Focus on Mobile Traffic: During the second quarter of 2017, the number of average daily unique visitors who accessed the Company’s primary “Autohome” application raised by 27% contrast with the second quarter of 2016, further enhancing the Company’s dominant position among auto vertical applications in China.
• Successful Expansion of Augmented Reality Automobile Show: The Company expanded the use of its Augmented Reality Automobile Show (the “AR Show”), first launched in March 2017, to enhance user engagement and interaction. The AR Show took place from June 28 to July 3, 2017, and attracted 30 branded automakers with close to 100 automobile models on display. This resulted in over 10.8 million unique visitors with about 84% originating from tier 2 and below cities.
• Asset-Light Vehicle E-commerce Platform Expanded to Incorporate Used Cars: As part of the Company’s strategy, Autohome sold the remaining 647 vehicles from its direct sales inventory during the second quarter of 2017, bringing its inventory clearance to a conclusion. Autohome launched a used car platform in June 2017 which incorporates many innovative services to enable expanded and reliable used car sourcing, broaden dealer financing support solution and used car financing portfolio, enhance consumer tracking and channel administration, improve leads quality, and ensure efficient internal administration and operations.

The stock closed its last trade at the price of $50.1, while exchanging hands with the volume of 1994717 shares contrast to its average daily volume of 1.21M shares. Trading volume is an important technical indicator a shareholder uses to confirm a trend or trend reversal. It is generally higher when the price of a security is changing, as the strength of any given price movement is measured mainly by the volume and shifts in trade volume can make observed price movements more significant. News about a company’s financial status, products, or plans, whether positive or negative, will typically result in a temporary increase in the trade volume of its stock. Higher volume for a stock is also an indicator of higher liquidity in the market. For institutional shareholders who wish to sell a large number of shares of a certain stock, lower liquidity will force them to sell the stock slowly over a longer period of time, to avoid losses because of slippage. The stock, as of recent close, has shown weekly upbeat performance of 2.220% which was maintained at 6.98% in 1-month period, and is up 98.18% in this year. The company now has a market value of $5.85B.

The stock, after recent close, is 9.07% above their SMA 50 and 4.57% from SMA20 and is 45.31% above than SMA200. 36% shares of the company were owned by institutional investors. The company has 6.32 value in price to sale ratio while price to book ratio was recorded as 5.78. It beta stands at 2.26.

The average 12 month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $41. Analyst mean recommendation for this stock stands at 2.78. Analyst recommendations as stated on FINVIZ are rated on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is equivalent to a buy rating, 3 a hold rating, and 5 a sell rating. The consensus recommendation is the average rating on a stock by the analyst community.