Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) offered some good with some bad on Monday.
The Google parent’s fourth-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street's forecasts as revenue growth in the company's advertising business slowed in the final three months of the year. But the company posted a big beat on the bottom line, thanks to a much lower tax rate than analysts were expecting.
Fourth-quarter 2019 revenue minus traffic acquisition costs came in at $37.57 billion. Wall Street had predicted $38.39 billion in revenue on that basis.
Fourth-quarter 2019 earnings per share (EPS) registered $15.35. Analysts were expecting $12.50 a share.
In terms of future earnings, first-quarter 2020 EPS were forecast for $12.31. The company didn't offer any earnings-per-share guidance for the upcoming quarter. Alphabet earned $9.50 a share in the first quarter last year, a period in which it recorded a $1.7 billion fine from the European Commission.
And perhaps more importantly for many investors and analysts, it finally offered some long-awaited financial details on its YouTube and Google Cloud businesses.
The financial revelations marked a major move by CEO Sundar Pichai in his first quarterly report to investors since taking the reins of Alphabet from founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in December.
But while the revenue figures for YouTube and Google Cloud provided long-awaited insight into two fast-growing businesses, investors focused on the sluggish overall growth at Google, sending the stock lower $52.12, or 3.5%, to $1,430.48 in early Tuesday trading.
