Investors See The End Of Tableau's Momentum, Even As Q4 Figures Pass Expectations

Investors may have been stunned by Tableau Software Inc DATA's 50 percent drop in share price Thursday evening, but analysts were not. Despite beating Wall Street's earnings and revenue forecast for the fourth quarter, the company missed its crucial licensing revenue mark.

The company posted diluted non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 and revenue of $202.8 million. The Street was expecting to see fourth-quarter earnings of $0.16 and $200.77 million in revenue. For the full year, analysts forecasted earnings of $0.45 per share and $651.46 million in revenue. Tableau beat those goals with $0.62 in diluted non-GAAP EPS and $653.6 million in revenue.

End Of The Line?

Despite these important benchmarks, the results and subsequent investor reaction revealed the weakness of Tableau's position.

According to Barron's, Mizuho analyst Abhey Lamba said the company missed "all important license sales," potentially indicating an end to the stock's momentum.

Benzinga referred to Summit Research analyst Srini Nandury to understand the investor exodus from the stock.

Nandury referenced a research note authored in September 2015 in which he wrote, "we are hearing that competition is intensifying, making sales harder to come by" for Tableau.

Another analyst confirmed Nandury's prediction.

"Basically, the market is moving away from DATA products, to alternatives like Amazon Web Services' QuickSight," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told Benzinga in an email. "The slowdown in DATA business occurred even much sooner than what we anticipated,"

"DATA is never ever going to ever see its stock in the 60s," Chowdhry continued. "The wind is out of the stock."

Tech stock expert and Quantum Trading Strategies CIO Sean Udall speculated that Tableau might have sandbagged its guidance, hoping to smash lowered expectations.