Iron Mountain Turns Compliance Into Cash

Shares of Iron Mountain rocketed 13% Wednesday after the information management company reported quarterly results that exceeded Wall Street expectations.

Riding the wave of corporate governance regulations and disaster preparedness, Iron Mountain reported fourth-quarter earnings of 23 cents a share, seven cents above analysts’ estimates. Revenues jumped 17% to $479 million, also beating expectations, and the company also raised forward guidance.

The company reported its 64th straight quarter of rising storage revenues, and also benefited from the acquisition of distributed data specialist Connected Corp.

With compliance and backup continuing to grow in importance, 54-year-old Iron Mountain may just be getting started.

The broader market ended lower in volatile trading, as upbeat comments from Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan failed to overcome concern over rising oil prices.

The Nasdaq gave back 3 to 2067, the S&P 500 slipped fractionally to 1210, and the Dow lost 18 to 10,811. Volume declined to 1.57 billion shares on the NYSE, and rose to 2.02 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 17-15 on the NYSE, and 17-13 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 52% on the NYSE, and 61% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 178-20 on the NYSE, and 108-46 on the Nasdaq.

Novellus fell 4% after in-line earnings guidance and better than expected revenues raised gross margin concerns.

Rambus plunged 10% after losing a patent round.

Loudeye and Packeteer jumped on their results, while Tibco , Fairchild , Opsware , Symbol and Verity fell on their earnings news.