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Amazon, Alphabet, Expedia Post Q3 Earnings

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Amazon.com (AMZN - Free Report) reported Q3 earnings after the bell today, providing an extremely mixed picture. While quarterly revenues of $32.7 billion beat the $3.57 billion expected in the Zacks consensus, earnings per share of 52 cents swung and missed badly from the 85 cents expected, amounting to a 39% miss on the bottom line. This is the company's second miss in the last four quarters, even as Q3 sales rose 29%. CEO Jeff Bezos' statement lists more than a full page of bullet-pointed highlights, including its cloud "brain" Alexa, as well as Amazon Studios' original content updates.

None of the bullet points could save the stock from falling more than 4% in after-market trading. Guidance for Amazon's seasonally strong Q4 was in the range of $42 billion - $45.5 billion; the Zacks consensus had already been pricing Q4 sales at $44.7 billion, so even with the revenue beat in Q3, estimates for next quarter look only in-line.

This quarterly report harkens back to the Amazon of yesteryear, when big anticipations for quarterly profits would be met with disappointing results and a blithe shrug from Bezos himself. He'd always had bigger fish to fry as he spent money on fulfillment centers in more and more locations. If his view currently is that spending for the long term is justified, it would appear it is in cloud-based solutions and creative content.

Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) also posted Q3 results after the bell, beating on both top and bottom lines. Stripping out stock-based compensation and other BNRI, Alphabet reported earnings of $7.25, topping the Zacks consensus of $6.64. Subtracting traffic acquisition costs (TAC) from its quarterly sales numbers, the Google parent brought in $18.27 billion as opposed to the $17.91 billion expected.

Aggregate paid clicks year over year were up 33%, and +9% quarter over quarter. Aggregate cost per click was down 11% from the year-ago quarter and down 5% from the June report total. Alphabet is trading up roughly 1.2% in the late session following a tough day of regular trading Thursday, down nearly 0.6%. The company also is two surprises positive and two negative over the past four quarters.

Internet travel service Expedia (EXPE - Free Report) reported in-line earnings on slightly better-than-expected sales -- $2.24 vs. $2.24 and $2.58 billion vs. $2.56 billion, respectively. These numbers represent year-over-year growth in profits of 40% and 32% in revenues. Expedia shares are up 1.3% in after-market trading.


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