Why Universal Display Corporation Shares Lit Up Today

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

What: Shares of Universal Display Corporation jumped more than 12% early Thursday after the OLED technologist announced a new $50 million share repurchase program.

So what: This authorization is seen as a significant vote of confidence in Universal Display's long-term story, and allows the company to reabsorb shares of common stock at its discretion during the next 12 months. It also comes on the heels of Universal Display's blowout first-quarter earnings report, which initially resulted in a 16% single-day pop early last month. Going into yesterday's close, however, investors' patience had worn thin as the stock gave up nearly all of its post-earnings gains to trade within reach of multi-year lows. 

Now what: Universal Display has made clear it doesn't have any significant cash needs right now, and much of its current $267 million cash hoard is the result of raising more than $250 million from a secondary offering back in 2011 in anticipation of acquiring a large OLED-centric patent portfolio from Fuji in 2012. But those patents only came with a purchase price of $105 million, and much of Universal Display's cash largely remained unutilized since then. With Universal Display now solidly profitable and with shares currently trading at just 17 times next year's estimated earnings, I think increasing shareholders' slice of the pie now is a great idea.