Stride stock soars 24% as strong enrollments drive Q1 results, guidance beat

Investing.com -- Stride Inc (NYSE:LRN) shares surged sharply after the for-profit education company reported first-quarter earnings and revenue above expectations and issued an upbeat Q2 guidance.

The company’s stock rocketed over 24% in premarket trading Wednesday.

Stride posted Q1 earnings per share of $0.94, notably beating the analyst estimate of $0.22. Revenue for the quarter reached $551.1 million, also surpassing the consensus estimate of $504.56 million.

The company reported a 19% year-over-year increase in enrollments for the first quarter, totaling 222,600 students. Of those, 91,700 were in career learning programs, marking a 30% year-over-year increase.

Looking ahead, Stride expects second-quarter revenue between $560 million and $580 million, with full-year revenue projected to be between $2.23 billion and $2.30 billion. Both surpassed Wall Street's forecasts of $535.3 million for Q2 and $2.17 billion for the full year.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) hiked their Stride price target from $74 to $94 after the report.

“Following the -24% stock decline in October on fears heading into the print, Stride's results not only debunked the bear thesis, but point to a strength in virtual K12 demand that is not well appreciated by investors,” analysts said in a Tuesday note.

“We expect the stock to be up meaningfully tomorrow based on results, and if you handed us this print on Sept 30th, before the stock declined -24%, we would have expected the same.”