
Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock Surges After Earnings, Stock Buyback
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Report shares are up 6.76% to $727.16 on Friday after the company reported strong third quarter fiscal 2015 earnings that surpassed forecasts, helped by strong growth in mobile search. Earnings for the recent quarter came in at $7.35 a share, beating analysts' forecasts of $7.21.
Revenue was $18.68 billion, topping estimates of $18.54 billion.
In the same period the year before, the company earned $6.35 a share on revenue of $13.17 billion.
Mobile search outnumbered desktop search, the company noted.
This is Alphabet's last time reporting without separating its business. January will be Alphabet's first segmented earnings.
"Products like Search, Android, Maps, Chrome and YouTube each have over a billion users already, and Google Play crossed that milestone this quarter as well," CEO Sundar Pichai stated.
In addition, the news that the company will spend $5.1 billion buying back its own shares helped shares skyrocket.
Due to these upsides, KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts said they lifted Alphabet's price target to $820 from $745 and maintained their "overweight" rating on the stock.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates ALPHABET INC as a Buy with a ratings score of B. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
We rate ALPHABET INC (GOOGL) a BUY. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, reasonable valuation levels, solid stock price performance and increase in net income. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat disappointing return on equity.
Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:
- GOOGL's revenue growth has slightly outpaced the industry average of 6.8%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 11.1%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share.
- Although GOOGL's debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05 is very low, it is currently higher than that of the industry average. Along with this, the company maintains a quick ratio of 4.60, which clearly demonstrates the ability to cover short-term cash needs.
- Compared to its closing price of one year ago, GOOGL's share price has jumped by 28.16%, exceeding the performance of the broader market during that same time frame. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, GOOGL should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year.
- The company, on the basis of net income growth from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly outperformed against the S&P 500 and exceeded that of the Internet Software & Services industry average. The net income increased by 17.3% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from $3,351.00 million to $3,931.00 million.
- You can view the full analysis from the report here: GOOGL








