Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
Google (GOOGL 0.55%) reported earnings last night that crushed analyst expectations, and the stock is now up more than 13%, pulling much of the stock market up with it. As of 1:30 p.m. EDT the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.02%) is up 0.54% to 1,743. The largest ETF tracking the S&P 500, the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY -0.05%), is up 0.57%.
Analysts had expected Google to report a strong quarter, but even their high estimates were surpassed by Google's results. Analysts expected earnings of $10.34 per share, and Google's actual EPS was $10.74 -- a 19% year-over-year rise. Net revenue -- revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs -- was expected to be $11.7 billion, and Google's actual net revenue rose 5% year over year to $11.92 billion.
Google's great results have led the stock to an all-time high of $1,008, driven by a 26% year-over-year increase in paid clicks, which was more than enough to offset an 8% year-over-year decline in cost-per-click ad prices.
Fellow search giant Baidu (BIDU 0.98%) is up 6.9% on Google's results, an analyst upgrade, and the better-than-expected Chinese Q3 GDP figure that was released last night. China reported that Q3 GDP rose 2.2% quarter over quarter and 7.8% year over year. It should be noted that China reports GDP differently from most countries. In the U.S., GDP is reported quarterly on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis. China reports its quarterly GDP on a seasonally adjusted basis, but the data is not annualized. Annualizing the quarterly GDP figures can give a varying view of Chinese GDP from the year-over-year figures, which are just that and are not seasonally adjusted.
The tech sector as a whole is up 1%, with Apple and Cisco among the other big movers in the S&P 500.
