Minuk's Musings and $BIG$ Earnings
Richard Minuk - Apr 26, 2024
One of the most important companies in the world just reported MONSTER earnings.
Yes, earnings season has come again. A time to watch and wait in excitement as our favourite companies tell us how well or poorly their businesses have performed over the past quarter (3 months).
Yesterday, Alphabet, aka Google, opened their books to the world and voila – just fantastic!
Revenue from the quarter reached more than $80.5 billion, up 15% from the same period in the prior year. The company also reported 57% year-over-year growth in profits to nearly $23.7 billion.
Where’s this growth coming from?
Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed the success in part to the company’s investments in artificial intelligence, including the large language model and suite of AI products it calls Gemini (cnn.com).
It is happening – the machines are taking over.
In all their glory, Google took this opportunity to celebrate by announcing they’ll give cash back to anyone who owns their stock with their first dividend in the company’s history.
Furthermore, management will begin a $70 billion buyback program. This means that Google will use their cash to buy shares of their own company on the stock exchange in order to retire the shares forever. The result is that each remaining stock available represents a larger piece of the overall company – good news for shareholders holding those stocks.
As I write this note, Friday April 26th, 2024 at 10:15am, Alphabet shares are up 9.3% today and 23.5% for the year.
Hope you have a nice weekend.
Rich
Investment Advisor