Google Gains Ahead of Earnings Despite Analysts Remaining Cautious

Published on Wednesday, 11 April 2012 13:38 Written by Christopher Lynn

New York, April 11^th (TradersHuddle.com) – Shares of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), the owner of the largest Internet Search Engine, was climbing 1.22% to $634.50 ahead of tomorrow’s release of its quarterly results, rallying with the broad market.

On average analysts expect a profit of $9.65 per share on revenues of $8.13 billion. Last quarter the company posted a 9.4% downside earnings surprise, as it earned $9.50 per share. The highest earnings estimate is $10.91 per share, while last year earnings for the same period were $8.08 per share.

Needham was cautious on its comments, saying the quarter looks very much like the past quarter in which the company missed earnings expectations by close to $1 per share. The firm cited the continued decline in Cost-per-Click rates and European weakness.

Yesterday, Capstone said that it expects the Internet giant to report earnings inline with the firm’s estimate of $10.91 per share, which is well above the average consensus. The firm said revenues will likely hit $8.5 billion and it expects paid clicks to grow 20%, and CPCs to grow 2% from a year ago period. Also, it sees upside to paid clicks with risk for weaker-than-expected CPCs.

Earlier in the week, RBC Capital said that it expects net revenues inline with consensus with flat sequential growth, with the key swing factor likely to be margins.