Earnings Reports Send Cisco and Zillow Lower in After-Hours Session

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

With little major economic news and Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen done with her visit to Congress, the major indexes ended today's session mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day down 30 points, or 0.19%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.03%, and the Nasdaq gained 0.24%.

Weather concerns may have affected the Dow. With the second big winter storm hitting parts of the Southeast today and expected to run up the Eastern Seaboard tonight and tomorrow, investors sent shares of insurance company Travelers lower by 1.14% today. You wouldn't think some snow would have people sounding alarm bells, but after the havoc the Jan. 28 storm wreaked on Atlanta, some investors clearly aren't taking any chances and are getting out before Travelers has to make any payouts.

Another big Dow mover today was Cisco which closed the regular trading day up just 0.49% but lost 4.16% in the extended trading period after reporting earnings. Revenue of $11.2 billion and earnings per share of $0.47 did squeak past analysts' expectations of $11.0 billion and $0.46, but management said third-quarter revenue is likely to fall 6%-8% on a year-over-year basis. As my colleague Alex Dumortier noted earlier, Wall Street was expecting this decline, so this drop in the after-hours seems a little overdone.  

Outside the Dow, shares of Zillow finished the day up 2.67% in anticipation of an after-hours report. But once investors got a look at the numbers, the stock fell 2.22%. EPS of $0.19 and revenue of $58.03 million both beat expectations, but the GAAP net loss was $12.5 million for the full year of 2013, compared with GAAP net income of $5.9 million in 2012. Higher costs, especially in advertising, accounted for the loss, and investors ought to be cutting the company some slack, considering the advertising seemed to pay off: Average monthly unique users grew to 54.4 million during the fourth quarter. That's a 57% year-over-year increase. Zillow is now double the size of its two closest competitors in terms of combined Web and mobile traffic. Tthat's the kind of growth and market position I want to see as an investor, and that's why I won't be selling my shares of Zillow anytime soon.