When missed earnings leaked prematurely.
It's bad to surprise,
But if profits should rise,
The stock would go up again, surely.
The stock market was gripped by a thrill of panic Thursday, when Google's 3rd quarter earnings announcement was leaked during trading hours instead of after the 4:00 PM close. However, it was not just the slip-up by $GOOG's financial printer R.R. Donnelley that roiled the market, but the news itself: a 20% fall in profits and slowing revenue growth. Like fellow internet behemoth Facebook, Google is having some challenges in building ad revenue from increasingly popular mobile usage to the extent that it has from the desktop. There is hope for the future, though; CEO Larry Page, on the earnings conference call, enthused over the "tremendous innovation in advertising, which I believe will help us monetize mobile queries more effectively than desktop today." So, $GOOG shares, which closed down 8% on the day, may soon resume their upward trend.
In the meantime, the company has built up its cash pile to $45.7 billion, an amount large enough to -
- Pay for all of the e-commerce in China during the second quarter of this year;
- Bail out Bank of America;
- Close the funding gap in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System.
Well done!
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