This morning, Level 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT) confessed to a second-quarter loss of $134 million, or 8 cents per share, roughly tripling its year-ago loss of $42 million, or 3 cents per share. Revenue for the period slipped 12% to $942 million. The results were mixed, as far as analysts' expectations were concerned; Wall Street was looking for a slightly wider quarterly loss of 9 cents per share on more robust revenue of $959.4 million.
"The economy continued to be challenging in the second quarter for wireline service providers," said James Crowe, the company's CEO. "As expected, sequential revenue pressure continued in the second quarter, although at a significantly moderated rate. We did see improvements in sales and churn, however, they were not as much as we expected."
Looking ahead, Level 3 said it expects full-year adjusted EBITDA of $900 million to $950 million. Previously, the telecom firm predicted that 2009 EBITDA would rise from the $988 million recorded in fiscal 2008.
As a result of its softer-than-expected revenue and slashed guidance, LVLT is sharply lower in today's trading. The equity has added 131.4% year-to-date, though that's not saying much about a stock that settled Wednesday at $1.62 per share.
On the plus side, LVLT hasn't yet experienced a complete technical breakdown. The shares are still maintaining a narrow perch above support at their 10-week moving average, which has collaborated with its 20-week counterpart to contain all of the stock's weekly closes since late March.
Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.
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