Shares of Newport Beach-based chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc. continued their bullish run on Friday, defying a sluggish day on Wall Street.
Investors sent the stock up about 20% in afternoon New York trading on a recent market value of some $210 million.
Conexant, a maker of chips for computers, modems and digital picture frames, is a smaller stock that can see wild swings.
Shares were trading at around $3.50 on Friday.
The run-up comes a day after Conexant gave a better than expected outlook for the current quarter.
Conexant forecast a profit of about $9 million, or nearly twice what analysts had been expecting.
Sales are seen coming in at $60 million to $61 million, versus the $55 million analysts were forecasting.
The company is starting to see the fruits of a long cost-cutting effort that wrapped up last year.
“Management continues to run a tight ship and maintain hard won leverage following last year’s restructuring efforts, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Dan Morris said in a research note.
The rosier outlook comes on the heels of Conexant’s results for the December quarter, which also beat analysts’ expectations.
For the three months through Jan. 1, Conexant reported an adjusted profit of $10 million, beating the $6.5 million analysts were expecting.
Sales came in at $61.8 million, topping the $60.1 million analysts were looking for.
