Per the usual during earnings season, time is brief. So here’s the bottom line: Alphabet’s (GOOGL) earnings have saved the FAANG (or FANG, as TheStreet’s Jim Cramer coined five years ago) investing complex for now. In fact, they may have saved the market until earnings season is over in early August and then we see a vicious selloff into the midterm U.S. elections. Just setting you up.
Anyway, Alphabet crushed it in most areas despite not being expected to post a hell of a lot in the minds of Wall Street. Traffic acquisition cost growth moderated; YouTube is rocking; no indication of a third-quarter Alphabet breakup at the hands of the EU; 12 straight quarters of organic revenue growth above 20%; ad revenue up 21% from the prior year.
All in all, for a company the size of Alphabet, not too shabby — the market is right to send the stock higher off the numbers. Alphabet’s results suggest the type of strength for Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook’s (FB) numbers (Microsoft’s numbers signaled that, too) that the market will view favorably. Apple (AAPL) may be the weakest FAANG name, but the valuation continues to be stupid cheap.
Said veteran tech analyst Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital Markets: “Despite a $120 billion revenue run-rate. And we would argue that Google still accounts for at most 10% of global ad spend. And the company’s investments in Cloud, Internet-connected Homes, and Autonomous Vehicles potentially set the company up for more years of premium growth & profits. There is regulatory risk, though we have yet to find evidence that regulations will adversely impact the usefulness of Google for consumers or advertisers.”
Data Dump
For those wanting to use Alphabet’s earnings as a jumping off point to buy more stocks here is your data point. Pointed out Bank of America Merrill Lynch:
“Despite elevated market valuations, more than half of the S&P 500 sectors trade at a discount to history on relative forward P/E, including Health Care and Telecom (cheapest vs. history) plus Tech, Materials, Real Estate, Industrials and Staples. But Staples looks cheap for the wrong reasons: prices falling faster than EPS downgrades.”
Around TheStreet
The Dan Loeb call on PayPal (PYPL) — looking for a 50% gain inside of 18 months — remains in focus on Tuesday. Having gotten to know PayPal CEO Dan Schulman and his team, only 50% upside may be on the light side. Listen to my podcast with Schulman here and judge for yourself.
Shares of the owner of Match.com (yes, they also own Tinder) and Angie’s List have surged 19% this year on the back of an impressive start to the year. The company is also sitting on a nice chunk of cash, which will likely be used in a value-creating way before year-end. My instinct says a deal is lurking as IAC — with Barry Diller as chairman and CEO Joey Levin — have shown a knack for identifying good targets and extracting value from them.
Tesla’s (TSLA) statement to me Monday afternoon regarding it asking its suppliers for cash is interesting. I read it as (1) The company confirmed it reached out to suppliers for cash, a clear sign of weakness; (2) third-quarter profit, as Elon Musk has promoted, is off the table. But hey, what do I know — read for yourself here.
Wrong to give Harley-Davidson (HOG) a modest hat tip for its big second-quarter earnings beat and well-crafted earnings release? Too bad if it is, Harley deserves one amid its challenging second quarter being raked over the coals by team Trump. Harley teased a big release on July 30 detailing its future — that will likely grab investor focus moreso than the quarter (sales were weak, as expected).
