Baidu's Guidance Cut Mainly Due To Healthcare Impact


27% profit every 20 days?

This is what Nic Chahine averages with his option buys. Not selling covered calls or spreads… BUYING options. Most traders don’t even have a winning percentage of 27% buying options. He has an 83% win rate. Here’s how he does it.


Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ: BIDU) reduced its 2Q revenue guidance by a greater-than-anticipated 11 percent.

Morgan Stanley’s Robert Lin maintains an Overweight rating on the company, while lowering the price target from $200 to $182.

ENTER TO WIN $500 IN STOCK OR CRYPTO

Enter your email and you'll also get Benzinga's ultimate morning update AND a free $30 gift card and more!

Guidance Cut

Lin explained that the higher-than-expected guidance cut was driven by stricter advertising regulations for healthcare, as well as a decline in the ad load, especially on PC.

The company lowered its 2Q revenue guidance to Rmb18.1-Rmb18.2 billion, below the consensus expectations of Rmb20.1 billion.

“The negative revenue impact is mainly from healthcare and high quality medical customers who have reduced or delayed spending to be compliant with new regulations over time,” Lin mentioned.

Management Expectations

Baidu expects the spending from these customers to gradually recover. Management also mentioned that CPC had declined over the past month, driven by a decline in bidding density, although CTR continued to be robust.

“While we think CPC could recover after spending returns, we believe CTR could be the wild card given ad format changes,” Lin stated.

In addition, management stated that short-term costs were likely to largely remain unchanged, while maintaining the SG&A guidance for 2016 at Rmb20 billion.

The revenue and EPS estimates for FY16, FY17 and FY18 have been lowered to reflect the higher than expected impact of healthcare and ad load decline.


27% profit every 20 days?

This is what Nic Chahine averages with his option buys. Not selling covered calls or spreads… BUYING options. Most traders don’t even have a winning percentage of 27% buying options. He has an 83% win rate. Here’s how he does it.


Posted In: Analyst ColorLong IdeasGuidanceHealth CarePrice TargetReiterationAnalyst RatingsTechTrading IdeasGeneralMorgan StanleyRobert Lin