Rudolph Technologies (NYSE:RTEC) is in the business of designing, developing, and manufacturing as well as supporting high-performance process control equipment, defect inspection, and data analysis systems used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. This is a serious chip manufacturing niche stock. It’s a fairly small company with a market capitalization of $401 million and has a fairly small stock turnover volume of $250,000.
With that said, Rudolph Technologies is looking like a great stock to buy. Why? Primarily due to upwards earnings revisions. Whenever a company increases its estimated earnings, that’s a positive sign. It shows that the company is seeing bright prospects up ahead. Based on this metric, Rudolph Tech is a great buy because analysts following the stock have revised their estimates upward for the current quarter as well as for the following quarter and all of 2015.
This is great news considering the fact that a lot of other companies both in the technology and consumer space don’t have such rosy forecasts. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, stock investing is really all about the comparative value. The market will value you based on how it perceives your value compared to other stocks. Since its earnings consensus keeps going up, this is a stock worth paying attention to.
Just how dramatic are these upwards estimated earnings revisions? Take the case of the current quarter. Analysts’ consensus started out at four cents. Now it has been revised to eight cents. For the next quarter, the original consensus was around six cents earnings per share. Now it has been revised to twelve cents earnings per share. All told, for 2015, Rudolph Tech is expected to earn 59 cents per share. This is quite a dramatic improvement from the original consensus of 33 cents per share. The stock has been rallying recently, but it looks like it may have room left to grow. This is a great stock to watch. Look for some dips to see if you can get in.
