Google & Amazon On Earnings Schedule This Week

This is a big week for US earnings with IBM, Microsoft, and Intel on the schedule. Traders will also see earning from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Food and beverage giants ranging from Starbucks to McDonald’s are on the schedule. But the big event will be on Thursday as traders are all eyeing numbers from “Alphabet” the parent company of Google which will be followed by Microsoft and Amazon.

Amazon is set to report another jump in revenue when it reports first-quarter results on 20 April, but the company could again struggle to meet profit expectations amid stiff competition for its web services and rising costs for online retailing. The internet retailing giant has consistently outperformed revenue expectations in recent quarters, but has also missed profitability expectations several times in the past and has been punished by investors for these misses.

Amazon (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) — extended their breakouts Friday ahead of both companies’ first-quarter earnings reports. Alphabet shares continued a slight ascent into the lower end of buy range following a breakout from a cup-with-handle base with 777.41 buy point, and remain well above their 50-day and 200-day lines. Amazon edged 0.8% higher Friday, remaining solidly in buy territory.

Investors are keenly focused on slowing margin growth in the Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing services business that’s facing increased competition from the likes of Microsoft and Google, as well as rising costs in Amazon’s online retailing business. Amazon stock hit a recent high of $696.44 at the end of the year, but then declined 31% to $474 in February. The fourth-quarter profit miss didn’t help, but a lot of the decline was driven by issues surrounding Amazon’s onerous contract stipulations with suppliers that forced suppliers to pay for free shipping of items on their own. Some have argued that these issues have now been fully priced into the stock.

The Smart Analyst reported that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will report its Q1:16 earnings on April 21 after market close. For this quarter, the second as a conglomerate, analysts are expecting revenues of $20.34 billion and earnings of $7.96 per share, compared to last quarter’s revenues of $21.32 and earnings of $8.67 per share.

In the report, analysts will be watching for both mobile and YouTube data points as these two segments are “key drivers of strength,” according to Goldman Sachs who weighed in on the company with a Buy rating and $890 price target on April 14, 2016. The company stated “We view 1Q16 as the beginning of enhanced fiscal discipline driven by CFO Ruth Porat, given much of the CY15 plan was put in place by her predecessor.”

Apple is scheduled to report earnings the following week. Earnings report from Apple usually makes big waves, and most Wall Street analysts will probably pay a lot of attention to iPhone sales figures during the quarter. However, chances are that the company will also announce a new dividend increase, and this could have major implications for investors in Apple stock as analyzed by Motley Fool.

Apple reinstated dividends in 2012, and the company has consistently increased payments each year after that. In the last shareholder meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated that the company is committed to increasing dividends on an annual basis. Apple’s dividend history shows they’re due for a hike — over the last three years Apple has announced its annual dividend increases in its earnings report for the quarter ended in March.