Google Bungle Fuels Twitter Babble

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After Google (GOOG) says publisher R.R. Donnelley (RRD) accidently released the search giant's worse than expected earnings hours before results were scheduled to be unveiled to the public, Twitter is alight with conspiracy theories.

Notably, some are taking the unexpected release of Google's earnings during the day's trading -- and the halting the company's shares after a near 10% stock drop -- as evidence of both uncertainty over tech sector earnings and proof that Federal Reserve policies are pushing stocks to levels that diverge with actual earnings prospects.

"Google plunge confirms that markets have not priced in Risk," wrote Chris Canham, a fund manager at Baystone Capital, on Twitter moments after the unexpected release. "The result of CB's/Leaders trying to manipulate markets with words/stimulus," added Canham.

According to the release, Google's third-quarter earnings came in at $9.03 per share on $11.33 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for Google to earn $10.65 a share on $11.9 billion in revenue quarterly revenue, up from $9.72 a share on $7.51 billion in sales in the year-ago quarter.

Shares closed at $695.42, down nearly 8% on the day on the earnings miss.

As Google traded sharply lower and was halted in the mid-afternoon, Bloomberg's Dominic Chu noted that competitors in Google's ad and mobile phone markets like LinkedIn (LNKD), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB) traded down, but bounced off session lows. "Google halted, but $LNKD $FB $AAPL near, but off session lows on heels of $GOOG earnings & sales miss," wrote Chu on Twitter.

According to Bloomberg, Google blames publisher R.R. Donnelley for the early earnings release and says it will continue to hold its earnings call at 4:30 p.m. eastern time.

R.R. Donnelley's shares were off nearly 1% to $10.76 in Thursday trading, climbing back from intraday losses in excess of 7%.

While Google may blame R.R. Donnelley for its premature earnings release, blogger ZeroHedge wrote on Twitter that the company can't blame wider macroeconomic factors for its earnings miss - a refrain heard frequently in many recent earnings misses. "GOOGLE DOES NOT BLAME BUSH, EUROPE OR THE WEATHER (take note S&P 500)," wrote ZeroHedge.

Henry Blodget of Business Insider tweeted out a story that Google was blaming R.R. Donnelley for the company's "earnings release disaster," to which Anupreeta Das of the Wall Street Journal replied, "Can't blame RR Donnelley for the numbers though."

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