Western Digital Corp.’s stock went on a roller-coaster ride late Thursday after the company posted disappointing fiscal second-quarter results that came in below expectations.

The data storage firm reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of $1.45 per share on revenue of $4.2 billion, down from the $5.3 billion revenue it made a year ago. The company also posted a net loss of $487 million for the quarter.

Wall Street was hoping for better, with analysts expecting adjusted earnings per share of $1.49 on revenue of $4.25 billion.

Western Digital executives blamed the shortfall on “price uncertainty” in the NAND flash market, which is one of the company’s key areas of interest.

Steve Milligan, the company’s chief executive officer, said that a “softening business environment” led to lower-than-expected sales in the three-month period.

“We are taking actions to better align our cost and expense structure to near-term business conditions while continuing to deliver innovative solutions to drive our future success,” Milligan said in a statement. “We enter calendar 2019 with the strongest product portfolio in our history and confidence in our ability to capitalize on the long-term opportunities associated with data growth.”

That confidence was illustrated in Western Digital’s guidance for the next quarter, which came in just above expectations. The company said it’s expecting earnings of 98 cents per share on revenue of $3.9 billion. Analysts also projected earnings of 98 cents per share, but forecast slightly lower revenue of $3.88 billion for the quarter.

“Western Digital did well to reduce losses in the face of a substantial revenue decline, but needs to manage costs better and find a path back to profitability,” analyst Holger Muller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE. “Uncertain demand for memory chips may mean that the third quarter won’t be easy for the vendor. Still, it helps that Western Digital is coming up with promising new products and capabilities in 2019.”

Investors apparently didn’t know what to make of things, at least initially. Western Digital’s stock fell by almost 5 percent in after-hours trading in the minutes after it reported its results. But later, after the conference call, the stock recovered to rise about 8 percent.

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