Aurora Stock Drops on Earnings News

Shares of Aurora Electronics Inc. plummeted 19% Thursday on news that the Irvine computer service provider’s latest quarterly results will fall below analysts’ expectations.

Shares fell $1.375, closing at $6 each in heavy trading on the American Stock Exchange. Company officials declined to comment Thursday.

But in a statement issued Thursday morning, the company said earnings for its fiscal 1994 fourth quarter, which ends Sept. 30, will be hurt by lower-than-expected sales and profit margins for its memory products and subsystems. Aurora said the latest generation of memory chips is being installed in products more slowly than it anticipated.

Aurora said its integrated circuit recycling and maintenance parts distribution operations continue to perform in line with expectations

Mark Matheson, an analyst at Crowell, Weedon & Co. in Los Angeles, said Aurora’s lower earnings may reflect the vulnerability of companies dependent on larger computer firms suffering in an industrywide slump. “Some of these service piggybackers can get whipsawed,” he said.

Last week, Cerplex Group Inc., an Anaheim provider of electronic repair services, reported lower-than-expected earnings for its third quarter because of reduced work from IBM.