Red Hat falls after quarterly results, software peers weak

Shares of publicly traded software companies are struggling after open-source software company Red Hat (RHT) released its quarterly report. For Q1, the company delivered better than expected results with EPS of 72c on revenue of $813.5M. SECOND QUARTER GUIDANCE: The company's Q2 view fell short of consensus views. Red Hat said it sees Q2 EPS of 81c on a revenue range of $822M-$830. Analysts were expecting EPS of 89c on revenue of $854.95M. For FY19, the company said it expects EPS in a range of $3.44-$3.48 on revenue of approximately $3.375B-$3.410B. Analysts were modeling FY19 EPS of $3.42 on revenue of $3.45B. SHARES AT PEAK VALUATION: Earlier this week, Raymond James downgraded Red Hat to Market Perform from Outperform. Analyst Michael Turits changed his view ahead of Red Hat's Q1 report on Thursday, saying shares are at peak valuation and the company is facing a difficult NTM growth outlook. Turits' Q1 reseller checks were mostly strong, but confirm company warnings that legacy middleware is slowing and there were some indications of further competitive pricing pressure. The analyst also said he sees other headwinds from the shift in focus to mid-market, ongoing extensions of larger deals, and reduced foreign exchange revenue tailwinds. PRICE ACTION: Shares of Red Hat are down 11% to $147.45 in after-hours trading. OTHER SOFTWARE SHARES LOWER: Shares of Microsoft (MSFT), VMware (VMW), Oracle (ORCL), and Splunk (SPLK) are falling with Red Hat in the after-hours.