Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is set to report FQ2 2014 earnings after the market closes on Thursday, July 17th. This quarter, 83 contributing analysts on Estimize.com have come to a consensus earnings expectation of $6.24 EPS and $12.836B in revenue compared to a consensus of $6.23 EPS and $12.350B from Wall Street. Over the previous 6 quarters Estimize.com has been more accurate than Wall Street in forecasting Google’s earnings per share and revenue 5 times each.
Google’s EPS is notoriously tricky to estimate because it’s difficult to gauge how much money the company is spending each quarter on research and development behind closed doors. Between self driving cars, drones, Google Glass wearable technology, and who knows whatever else, they are working on in unmarked warehouses out in Silicon Valley, so predicting the company’s costs on a quarterly basis is pretty much a crapshoot.
Google named former CEO Alan Mulally to its board this week as well, fueling speculation that Google may be raising the stakes on its driverless car bet, looking to dominate the inside of cars with its Android operating system, or even toying with the idea of expanding into a new transportation technology.
Estimize.com ranks and allows the sorting of analysts by accuracy, the analyst with the lowest error rate on Google with at least 2 estimates scored is an information technology professional who goes by the username pttawfik. Over 2 previously scored estimates pttawfik has averaged an impressively low error rate of 1.7%. Estimize is completely open and free for anyone to contribute, and the base of contributing analysts on the platform includes hedge fund analysts, asset managers, independent research shops, non professional investors, and students.
The Estimize consensus was more accurate than the Wall Street consensus 65% of the time last quarter on the coverage of nearly 1000 stocks. A combination of algorithms ensures that the data is not only clean and free from people attempting to game the system, but also weighs past performance and many other factors to gauge future accuracy.
Contributing analysts on the Estimize.com platform are forecasting that Google will report earnings a penny per share (<1%) ahead Wall Street’s EPS forecast and beat the Street’s revenue consensus by a considerable margin. The Estimize community also expects earnings to grow by $1.46 (31%) per share from $4.78 in FQ2 of last year to $6.24 this quarter.
Last quarter Google came up well short of revenue estimates, but kept investors relatively satisfied by posting better than expected profits. Mobile advertising has been heating up lately as evidenced by sales growth from Google and another big player in the online ads business, Facebook. This quarter contributing analysts on Estimize.com are forecasting that Google will accelerate year over year earnings growth to its highest rate in over a year.
The Estimize revenue consensus may be considerably higher than the Wall Street consensus, but it’s important to note that the sell side severally slashed its estimates at the end of the quarter. Quantitative research has shown that the recency of estimates is highly correlated with accuracy, largely because estimates made at the end of the period take into account the latest available information. The 10 most recent revenue estimates on the platform span a range from as low as $12.480B to a high of $13.150B with many analysts revising their sales estimates downward going into the report.