I guess Google (GOOG) investors will have to wait awhile for that psychologically satisfying (and otherwise) $1000 per share; apparently many GOOG holders tend to like big, round O's. But such will not be the case following the Internet search king's earnings and revenue miss in its 2nd quarter: headline revenues of $14.1 billion in the quarter — minus traffic acquisition costs (TAC) of roughly $3 billion — brings total sales in the quarter to $11.1 billion, lower than our expected $11.3 billion.
Similarly, Google posted earnings per share of $9.56, but if you strip out costs related to employee stock options, that figure becomes $7.75 per share — a clear miss from the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.04.
"Cost per click," a closely-watched measure of average ad pricing, was down 6%, and lower for the 7th straight quarter. Paid clicks were up 23%, but this was slightly lower than expected. That said, Google's Motorola Mobility segment made gains of nearly $1 billion in the quarter, and further usage of that company's many patents will likely play out over the coming quarters and years.
In the ongoing Google conference call, CEO Larry Page is giving updates on what's expected from Google in the coming quarters, including Google Glass, Moto X, etc. His testing has led to much excitement, he says (though if you've ever listened to Page on a Google conference call, "excitement" is clearly a relative term).
Anyway, Google's current Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) is largely in regard to mixed estimate revisions for both fiscal 2013 and 2014. Near-term, there is an upward bias on revisions: for GOOG's 3rd quarter, 3 upward revisions have been made in the past 60 days.
So while Google shares are down 4.5% in the after-market following a slight dip on a largely bullish day in regular trading, keep in mind GOOG is coming off all-time highs. That this tech behemoth may be gotten for a more reasonable price in the near-term may be something to think about, especially considering the company's planned stock split sometime in the second half of the year.
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