For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – February 2, 2022 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) GOOGL, General Motors GM, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) AMD, PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) PYPL and Starbucks SBUX.
Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:
Big Earnings Beats for GOOGL, AMD, GM; Misses for PYPL and SBUX Causes Sell-Off
Market indexes closed higher Tuesday for the third-straight trading day: the Dow was +273 points, +0.78%; the S&P 500 +31, +0.69%; the Nasdaq grew +106 points, +0.75%; and the small-cap Russell 2000 was +22 points to +1.10%. The trading day carried lots of volatility, but rallied in the final hour of regular trading to the close.
We saw slightly better-than-expected manufacturing data from both PMI and ISM for January, while Job Openings widened to 10.9 million in December. Job Quits remained high at 4.3 million. And Construction Spending dropped 50 basis points from expectations to +0.2% in December, from an upwardly revised +0.6% in December. A mixed bag in econ data yesterday, but nothing earth-shattering.
Google parent Alphabet zoomed passed estimates in its Q4 earnings report released after the closing bell, rising +6.7% in after-hours trading. Earnings of $30.69 per share outpaces expectations by a solid dollar, while revenues of $61.9 billion (minus traffic acquisition costs [TAC], which the company does not include in its sales headline of $75.3 billion) surged past the $59.32 billion in the Zacks consensus.
Alphabet also announced a big 20-for-1 stock split, which should provide a nice bonus for holders of the stock going forward (and bring its share price down to more affordable levels, from around $3000 to around $150). The big quarterly beat was in its Search category, which brought in $43.3 billion from the $41 billion expected. YouTube gained $8.6 billion while Cloud was $5.5 billion. This is the seventh straight quarterly earnings beat for the global leader in Internet search.
Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)-rated General Motors posted beats on both top and bottom lines for its Q4 report Tuesday afternoon, as well: $1.35 per share outpaced expectations by 20 cents per share, while sales of $33.58 billion in the quarter topped the $29.22 billion in the Zacks consensus. Electric vehicle (EV) reservations are also reportedly very strong, led by Silverado, whose EV reservations have surpassed 110K. Shares are up +2.5% in late trading.
Chip giant Advanced Micro Devices surged past expectations in its Q4 on both earnings and sales: 92 cents per share on a record-high $4.83 billion in revenues outstripped the 75 cents per share and $4.52 billion in sales anticipated. Data Center receipts doubled in the quarter for this 11th-straight bottom-line beat for the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated company. Guidance for Q1 and full-year earnings were also raised from expectations.
PayPal shares, however, are sinking -16% following its penny-miss on its bottom line to $1.11 per share in its Q4, while sales came roughly in-line at $6.9 billion, +13% year over year. Headwinds from its eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) spinoff continue, however, and guidance for next quarter and the full year came in below expectations, as the top brass looks to keep expectations conservative. This looks to be what traders are focused on, as the sharp decline swings PayPal to negative gains year to date thus far.
Starbucks turned in a mixed fiscal Q1 Tuesday afternoon, with 72 cents per share missing the 80 cents expected, though still better than the 61 cents per share from a year ago. Revenues edged past expectations to $8.1 billion from $7.99 billion in the Zacks consensus. Comps in China weighed on the quarter, dropping -14% on strict Covid regulations in Starbucks’ second-biggest market. Shares are down -4.7% in late trading.
Wednesday morning brings us private-sector payroll data for January from ADP. Only about 200K jobs are expected to have been created in the month, with the Omicron variant having peaked in much of the country and seasonal adjustments from holiday shopping season the usual considerations for this time of year. We’ll also get a Treasury quarterly refunding announcement and a Q4 home-ownership rate.
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