Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) 02 (Aug 17 - Dec 25)

[winston]

not vested

Alphabet

The company has the most popular mobile operating system and the leading search engine in the world. Its suite of apps is used by large swaths of the world's population for everything from email to photo management. And of course, Google's advertising business is a dominant force both in the U.S. and abroad.

The company makes most of its revenue selling online ads. Even as competition has heated up, Alphabet still remains the dominant player in that space. It's expected to take 31% of the global digital advertising market this year, outpacing every other digital ad seller, including Facebook.

Alphabet continues to find new ways to acquire information about its users, and what they're searching for, in order to perfect its ad business. One of the latest ways it's doing this is through its virtual assistant, Google Assistant. The company is one of the top three smart-speaker makers in the world, and the tens of millions of devices it's shipped will help it serve users more targeted ads as the smart-home market expands.

As if all of that weren't enough, Alphabet is pursuing other opportunities, including driverless cars, that could pay off years down the road. The company has taken an early lead in this space with its autonomous-vehicle subsidiary, Waymo, and has already launched an early version of a commercial autonomous ride-hailing company.

While this technology is likely decades away from being widespread, Alphabet has an opportunity to tap into this market -- estimated to be worth $7 trillion by 2050 -- in the coming years.

Source: Motley Fool

[winston]

not vested

Google parent, Alphabet, earnings miss, shares fall

by Daniel Howley

Google (GOOG, GOOGL) parent company Alphabet reported its Q3 2019 earnings on Monday beating analysts’ expectations on the top line but missing on earnings per share.

Here are the most important numbers from the report, as well as what analysts were expecting as compiled by Bloomberg's estimates.

Revenue: $33.01 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs versus $32.72 billion expected
Earnings per share: $10.12 versus $12.35 expected

The stock was off by 2% after the company reported earnings.

Google saw an increase in spending on research and development, sales and marketing, and general administrative fees in Q3 2019 compared to the same time last year.

The company has been stepping up its cloud initiative, as it attempts to catch up with market leaders Amazon and Microsoft.

Google doesn’t break out its cloud earnings, but CEO Sundar Pichai announced during the Q2 2019 earnings call that the company had achieved an $8 billion yearly run rate for its cloud division.

Google is also expanding its sales force to sell its cloud products to big businesses. It doesn't matter that companies may already have contracts with Amazon and Microsoft, either, as the majority of the major cloud providers offer a certain level of interoperability. That means there's still room for Google to jump into the fray.

The company's recent hardware releases, including the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, won't have an impact on this quarter's earnings, as they were only released on Oct. 15.

Source: Yahoo Finance

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-q ... 20823.html

[behappyalways]

The Real Reason Google Is Buying Fitbit
https://time.com/5717726/google-fitbit/

[winston]

not vested

Alphabet

The search giant continues to expand and, while search is king, the cloud presence is growing fast.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is a global technology company focused on key areas, such as search, advertising, operating systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products.

It generates revenue primarily by delivering online advertising and by selling apps and contents on Google Play, as well as hardware products.

The company provides its products and services in more than 100 languages and in 190 countries, regions and territories.

Alphabet offers performance and brand advertising services. It operates through Google and Other Bets segments.

The Google segment includes principal internet products, such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome and Google Play, as well as technical infrastructure and newer efforts, such as virtual reality.

Google has outlined expanding capabilities to facilitate commerce, capitalizing on the “treasure trove” of data provided by seven different properties, each with at least a billion active users (Android, Search, Chrome, Maps, Play, YouTube and Gmail).

Advertising remains a huge growth area, and the analysts noted this following the third-quarter results:

The Company reported third quarter results last week. Revenues beat on both core ad strength and rapid growth in other rev segments (Google Cloud, G Suite, Play and hardware). Other revenues grew 39% and was driven by the cloud. Margins and EPS also beat after adjusting for charges (French fine) and unrealized equity losses (we believe ride hailing investments).

We think shares can continue to work owing to ongoing strength in core ad business and other revenue segments and the still attractive valuation at 11.4x 2020 EV/EBITDA, in-line with the S&P despite 2 times the EBITDA growth.

Jefferies raised its price target to $1,550 from $1,500, while the consensus figure is $1,450.33. The shares closed at $1,289.61 on Monday.

Source: Jefferies

[winston]

not vested

Alphabet (GOOGL)

We all know Alphabet; the parent company of Google, with a market cap of $893 billion, is the world’s fourth-largest publicly traded company.

With over $136 billion in annual revenue, and $30 billion in net income, there is no doubt that Alphabet will hold its position near the top.

GOOGL shares are up 24% year-to-date, just slightly outperforming the S&P 500, after an earnings miss in the Q3 report.

While revenues were up, at $40.5 billion, the EPS of $10.12 missed the forecast by 18.5%.

The earnings slip came as the company increased capital expenditures from $5.28 billion one year ago to $6.73 billion in the current report.

The company is increasing spending on its cloud sales force, and has just made a $2.1 billion offer to acquire smartwatch company Fitbit.

The acquisition, if approved, will put Google in a direct position to compete against Apple in the smartwatch and wearable niche.

Fitbit will make an interesting addition to Alphabet’s ‘other revenue’ category, which includes both cloud systems and hardware. This category saw quarterly revenue of $6.43 billion, beating the forecast of $6.32 and coming in 38.5% above the year-ago quarter.

So GOOGL has a firm foundation in its core search engine business, strong ad revenue, and rising revenues in its other endeavors.

It’s a solid picture, and explains why the stock makes up 2.26% of Goldman’s ‘international exposure’ basket. Google’s global reach and profitability are undisputed.

5-star JMP analyst Ronald Josey is enthusiastic about the Fitbit acquisition, putting a $1,450 price target on GOOGL and writing, “We believe Fitbit is a natural fit with Google’s current hardware brands that include its Pixel phones, Nest connected home products, and Google home smart speakers under its Made By Google brand, along with its Android OS… we believe Google is investing in developing the hardware and touchpoints that will enable its ambient computing strategy…”

Josey’s price target suggests an upside for 12% for GOOGL shares.

5-star analyst Stephen Ju, of Credit Suisse, focused more on Alphabet’s free cash flow position in his comments, saying, “Google in our view is a controlled outcome, with management looking to drive consistent revenue and FCF growth through the amassing and creation of a portfolio of assets even as the law of large numbers begin to result in deceleration for some of the largest businesses…

Overall revenue growth has once again settled into a managed ~20%+ range… Google has resumed free cash flow growth this year after two years of investments.” Ju puts a $1,700 price target on the stock, showing confidence in a bullish 31% upside.

GOOGL’s Strong Buy consensus rating is based on 25 Buys set in the past three months, against just 4 Holds. Analysts are confident that the company can meet the challenges inherent in the ever-changing digital world.

Shares sell for an eye-popping $1,296, but the average price target, $1,455, truly gets into nosebleed territory. The stock has an average upside of 12%.

Source: Tip Ranks

[winston]

A TRIPLE-DIGIT RALLY IN DOMINATING OUR SCREEN TIME

Today's chart shows a "World Dominator" of the Internet age...

As regular readers know, the top company in a given industry often makes a great investment.

These World Dominators have strong business models, powerful global brands, and fortress-like balance sheets. Today's company is one that's hard to avoid when you're online...

Alphabet (GOOGL) is the $978 billion parent company to many of the world's favorite websites and software tools.

It owns the Google search and mapping services... Gmail e-mail... YouTube video streaming... the Android mobile operating system... and countless other tech properties.

Google collects information about its billions of users, then uses that info to target folks with advertisements. This has been a lucrative part of the business... The company sold $34 billion worth of ads in the most recent quarter, up 17% year over year.

GOOGL shares have steadily soared, too... rising about 160% over the past five years. As a dominant Internet company, Alphabet is in position to stay strong and keep growing...

Source: Daily Wealth

[winston]

not vested

Google parent Alphabet Q4 earnings: Revenue disappoints

by Daniel Howley

Missing Wall Street’s expectations on revenue, but beating on earnings per share.

Google accounts for more than 70% of global search ad revenue.

Source: Yahoo Finance

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alphabet ... 55754.html

[winston]

vested

Alphabet

The search giant continues to expand and, while search is king, the cloud presence is growing fast.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is a global technology company focused on key areas, such as search, advertising, operating systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products.

It generates revenue primarily by delivering online advertising and by selling apps and contents on Google Play, as well as hardware products. The company provides its products and services in more than 100 languages and in 190 countries, regions and territories.

Alphabet offers performance and brand advertising services. It operates through Google and Other Bets segments. The Google segment includes principal internet products, such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome and Google Play, as well as technical infrastructure and newer efforts, such as virtual reality.

Google has outlined expanding capabilities to facilitate commerce, capitalizing on the “treasure trove” of data provided by seven different properties, each with at least a billion active users (Android, Search, Chrome, Maps, Play, YouTube and Gmail).

Advertising remains a huge growth area as well, and the analysts expect the company to be a huge winner as product and service vendors look to reach the biggest possible audience.

Merrill Lynch has set a $1,620 price target for the shares, while the Wall Street consensus target is $1,610.04. Alphabet stock closed Tuesday’s trading at $1,386.32.

Source: 24/7 Wall St

[winston]

vested

Google Stock: Is It A Buy Right Now? Here's What Earnings, GOOGL Stock Chart Show

by REINHARDT KRAUSE

Source: Investor's Business Daily

https://www.investors.com/news/technolo ... yptr=yahoo

[winston]

just sold recently

This Stock is a Slam-Dunk Buy During the Panic

by Matt McCall

As of the last quarter, Google had $119.7 billion in total cash on its balance sheet. That’s vs. long-term debt of $3.9 billion. Current assets of $152.5 billion are more than triple current liabilities of $45.2 billion.

The downside is that digital ad spending is down. To an extent, the significant bump in online traffic will help offset some of those losses, but it won’t completely offset the decline in ad revenue.

As it stands, analysts still expect 11% revenue growth this year, so it’s not a complete contraction year for Alphabet.

It’s leaning on its Pixel smartphone, Android operating system, ChromeCast streaming options and in-home connectivity to drive growth. Perhaps most promising of all though, is its self-driving division with Waymo.

Source: Investor Place

https://dailytradealert.com/2020/04/11/ ... the-panic/