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Duolingo: No Longer a One Trick Pony

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Company Overview

Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock Duolingo ((DUOL - Free Report) ) is a language-learning platform that offers a gamified and interactive experience to users. Through bite-sized lessons, it covers vocabulary, grammar, listening, and speaking exercises in various languages. The platform employs adaptive learning technology, tracks user progress, and incorporates speech recognition for pronunciation practice. Duolingo is available as a mobile app, promotes community engagement, and has both free and premium versions, making language learning accessible, engaging, and personalized.

Blockbuster Quarter

On November 8th, Duolingo announced earnings that dramatically exceeded expectations.

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Image Source: Duolingo Investor Relations

New Innovations and Growth Avenues


Innovation plays a crucial role in driving earnings for companies, and earnings, in turn, are a key factor influencing stock prices. Innovations such as new products, services, technologies, or operational efficiencies can enhance a company's competitive advantage, attract customers, and drive revenue growth. Increased earnings result from improved operational efficiency, expanded market share, and a stronger overall market position. As a company's earnings rise, investors perceive it as a financially healthy and successful entity, making its stock more attractive.

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When many companies reach success, they fall into the trap of “caretaker” management, where executives try to keep the status quo, not break things, and collect their juicy paychecks. Duolingo is not one of those companies. The company is taking the successful blueprint from its wildly popular language learning app and is applying it to math courses and music courses. Now, rather than paying hundreds of dollars for music courses, parents can pay a small fee for the Duolingo app and have their kids up and running with the basics. DUOL also has expanded its language learning offering and has more than 100 courses with 40 languages.

An Object in Motion Will Stay in Motion

Not only is Duolingo a fundamental powerhouse, it has the bullish price and volume action to go with it. After reporting stellar third-quarter results in early November, DUOL jumped more than 20% on volume that was four times the norm. Since then, the stock has consolidated and held its earnings-induced gains. Often, when a stock has large gap and holds onto its gains, it enjoys post-earnings drift. Post-earnings drift refers to the tendency of a stock’s price to continue in the same direction as the initial price action.

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Bucking the IPO Trend

In recent years, IPOs have been few and far between, and those that have come public have performed poorly due to management and VCs using them as an avenue to cash out. For example, highly anticipated IPOs like Coinbase (COIN) and Airbnb (ABNB) have floundered and have yet to sniff their IPO day highs. Conversely, DUOL has eclipsed its IPO highs – a sign of relative strength.

EPS Surprise History

Since going public in 2021, DUOL has only missed Zacks Consensus Estimates in one quarter.

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Furthermore, it earns the best possible Zacks Rank of 1, meaning it is likely to outperform the market.


 


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