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Google missing its earnings – big deal or not?
Partly yes, partly no.
Here's why it matters. The earnings season has gotten off to a bit of a rocky start and bullish investors are increasingly nervous about signs of slowing growth and shrinking margins. Some companies have reported strong numbers – see Fairchild Semi, Fastenal, Alcoa – and still gotten punished.
All day today, Google was higher, but tech shares were mostly lower. Titans such as Apple, Microsoft, Cisco and Intel are all trading well off recent highs. Toss in the cool reception for Research in Motion's new PlayBook tablet and the scene from techland, broadly defined, looks a little rocky. Google's miss doesn't help matters.
Here's why it may not matter. Google famously doesn't give the Street a lot of help with its earnings estimates. The range coming into this quarter was as low as $7.58 a share and as high as $8.56 a share. (The company reported earnings of $8.08 a share on an adjusted basis.) General Electric, another huge company, has a range of 27 cents a share to 30 cents a share. So, Google sometimes misses, usually crushes.
At the same time, Google may appreciate something that Wall Street doesn't. It has fallen behind competitors like Facebook in the ever-crucial zeitgeist war. The leaders of the zeitgeist war attract better talent, especially in Silicon Valley. Google – which continues to hire like crazy – knows it needs to play the long – and potentially expensive – game in order to compete against Facebook et al.
Today's miss is real, and it present new challenges for CEO Larry Page. According to SEC filings, Mr. Page sold 55,556 shares at an average price of $573.14 through a previous planned automatic sales program. After hours, Google traded around $550.
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GREEN<GREEN and more green how come not much talk about electric cars, even though elect.car charging stations are popping up every where,what do you think about http://www.evcarco.com EVAC,can someone talk about the future that is here?
Apple’s slowly but surely going to kill Google- keep making excuses.
“Google famously doesn't give the Street a lot of help with its earnings estimates. The range coming into this quarter was as low as $7.58 a share and as high as $8.56 a share. (The company reported earnings of $8.08 a share on an adjusted basis.) General Electric, another huge company, has a range of 27 cents a share to 30 cents a share.”
So Google’s unhelpful estimates range over 6%. GE’s range over 11%. Which one of us isn’t understanding the math?
MarketBeat looks under the hood of Wall Street each day, finding market-moving news, analyzing trends and highlighting noteworthy commentary from the best blogs and research. MarketBeat is updated frequently throughout the day, helping investors stay on top of what's happening in the markets. The Wall Street Journal's Chief Markets Commentator Dave Kansas and MarketBeat lead writer Matt Phillips spearhead the MarketBeat team, with contributions from other Journal reporters and editors. Have a comment? Write to marketbeat@wsj.com or write Dave at dave.kansas@wsj.com or Matt at matt.phillips@wsj.com.
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