OCZ Technology Falls on Disappointing Earnings; Continues Semiconductor Downtrend

OCZ Technology Group OCZ is trading lower on the session following its Q1 earnings announcement. The company reported an EPS of Q1 EPS $(0.17) vs $(0.12) estimates and revenues $113.6M vs $115.72M estimates. OCZ Technology also guided FY revenue $630-700 million vs $654 million estimates. Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology said, "We are again pleased to report record revenue for the quarter as demand for our SSDs has been fueled by new product introductions. We continue to gain traction with our SAN replacement products and expect these products to begin to ramp in the third quarter. During our first fiscal quarter we successfully launched our next generation Indilinx Everest 2 controller platform and introduced the next generation of Agility and Vertex series SSDs based on this platform." OCZ Technology's disappointing earnings announcement comes in the heels of guidance cuts by many of its peers. For example, Applied Materials AMAT and Advanced Micro Devices AMD announced that they are seeing lower earnings due to slowing global demand. A few other companies that could be negatively affected by the decline in global demand are: Intel NASDAQ: INTC), Atmel ATML, and Cypress Semiconductor CY. Also, SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF XSD could see more downward pressure. Going short these stocks might be a profitable strategy, if the global slowdown continues. OCZ Technology Group is currently trading at $4.60, a loss of $0.85 or $15.60%.