After the market closed this Monday, Google parent Alphabet GOOGL posted Q4 earnings that came in stronger than expected. Earnings of $12.77 per share were well ahead of the $11.08 in the Zacks consensus — provided this is an apples-to-apples comparison; Google is one company that still makes analysts work to figure out how the actuals match the estimates — on $31.48 billion in revenues — excluding Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC; see what I mean?) — that topped the $31.28 billion we were looking for.
These TAC costs came to $7.4 billion in the quarter, whereas ad revenues grew 23% and cost per click came down 29%. Its Other Bets segment grew from the year-ago quarter but also created a bigger operating loss in Alphabet's Q4 2018. Overall, Operating Income grew nearly 13% to $9.7 billion. Its number of employees grew quite notably year over year, as well — from just over 80K this time a year ago to nearly 99K now.
Shares are trading down in the after market, giving up the full 2+% GOOGL had gained in normal Monday trading. The company had seen a 6% upswing in stock price from the beginning of the year; perhaps we're seeing a bit of "sell the news" here. It remains obvious the company is a robust machine that will be with us a long time. The company had carried a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) rating into the earnings report. For more of GOOGL's earnings, click here.
HIV treatment giant Gilead Sciences GILD also reported Q4 earnings Monday afternoon, and results here were mixed: $1.44 per share was well below the $1.74 in our consensus, yet revenues of $5.8 billion easily surpassed expectations of $5.52 billion coming in. The company also announced an increase to its quarterly dividend by 11%. But this is the fourth miss in the last 10 quarters for Gilead, and shares are selling off roughly 2.75% in the after-market.
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