Stocks of health IT vendor athenahealth fell slightly in Thursday's trading after the company reported earnings of $0.12 per share for the first quarter of 2014, lower than analysts' expectations of $0.17 per share, according to a report in The Street.
The company's revenue rose to $163 million, a 30 percent increase over the first quarter of 2013. However, that figure missed the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $170 million, according to the report.
Even while rating the company's stock at a C for poor returns on equity and a "premium valuation," The Street's rating team recognized the company's "robust revenue growth, expanding profit margins and good cash flow from operations."
This optimism was echoed by athenahealth CFO Tim Adams in a statement: "We are pleased with the progress we made in the first quarter to deliver on our full year growth targets…We see strong signs of positive momentum; we grew our core physician network by 31 percent, we expanded athenaClinicals into our enterprise segment and we signed our first athenaCoordinator Enterprise clients. We will continue to invest at a pace that keeps us in front of the enormous market opportunity to help caregivers proactively address the inevitable changes in healthcare."
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