Intuitive Surgical (NSDQ:ISRG) shares took a solid hit today despite fourth-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
Shares of ISRG were down -5.9% at $751.89 per share in mid-afternoon trading today. They had been down -1.1% at $790 per share after hours when the results were released yesterday.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based robot-assisted surgery technology developer posted profits of $365.2 million, or $3.02 per share, on sales of $1.3 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2020, for a 2.1% bottom-line gain on sales growth of 4% year-over-year.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $3.58, 46¢ ahead of Wall Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $1.24 billion.
Higher revenue numbers were driven by growth in procedure volumes for Intuitive’s da Vinci surgical robot, although they were somewhat offset by fewer system placements as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release.
The company noted that the resurgence of the virus late in the quarter and into January has had and will likely continue to have an adverse impact on procedure volumes, meaning it can’t reliably estimate the future impact on operations and financial results.
While shares of ISRG were down big, MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was down -0.5% in mid-afternoon trading today.