Helios Technologies (NYSE:HLIO), supplier of industrial machinery and components, recently brought out its earnings report for the second quarter. And it likely wished it hadn’t, pretty quickly thereafter. Helios started a plunge that carried on through most of Tuesday’s trading day, and though it did rally in Tuesday afternoon, it still briefly touched a disastrous low and shook investors.
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Under normal circumstances, Helios’ earnings report might not have seen so bad. Helios brought in earnings per share of $0.81, which faltered against analyst expectations of $0.84. However, Helios did come out on top on earnings, as analysts were looking for $222.14 million, and Helios posted $227.6 million. Even here, though, that proved a miss. The $227.6 million Helios posted was 5.8% lower than it was in the second quarter of 2022. Worse, net income dropped 44% in the space of a year, as Helios posted $0.51 per share in second quarter 2022.
Several factors contributed to the decline, Helios noted. Economic troubles throughout Asia hit Helios hard, and natural disasters—specifically a fire and a tornado—that crippled sales out of the Faster facility. The woes that hit the Faster facility also hurt visibility for the rest of this year. Thus, out of a sense of caution, Helios pared back its outlook. Helios cut back from $910 million to $940 million to a much more conservative $880 million to $900 million. That was enough for investors to pull out, and Helios stock ended up seeing a low it hadn’t seen since the pandemic.
Yet, despite this, it’s clear that Helios insiders are still very much on the stock’s side. Insider trading at at Helios Technologies shows insiders bought a combined total of $20,300 in shares over the last quarter. That in turn was enough to tick insider confidence over to “Positive”.
