The stock market has been volatile so far in 2022, and this roller coaster of an earnings season hasn't helped. Social media giant Meta Platforms (META 1.54%) broke a record that no company wants: It lost $230 billion in market value the day after releasing its earnings report, the largest one-day valuation wipeout in stock market history.
It exacerbated the decline in the tech-centric Nasdaq 100 index, which is now down 13% year to date. But 2022 hasn't been all bad news. Several companies have reported incredibly strong financial results over the last month, and here are four of the top performers.
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1. Amazon: Up 10%
Global e-commerce leader Amazon (AMZN -1.14%) saw its stock pop after announcing an $11.8 billion gain on its investment in electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive. That was the primary driver of the company's strong fourth-quarter earnings per share, making up 82% of its $14.3 billion in net income.
But as always, Amazon gave investors plenty of core-business action to be excited about. For the first time ever, it reported its advertising segment as a separate line item, showing $31 billion in revenue that even trounced ad-reliant platforms like Alphabet's (GOOG 0.37%) (GOOGL 0.35%) YouTube.
The company's cloud services platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), continued to be the savior of its profitability, making up 74% of overall operating income in the full-year 2021, despite representing just 13% of revenue.
While its Rivian investment won't carry the company forever, Amazon's expanding group of core businesses makes it a great long-term buy.
2. Zillow Group: Up 12%
Zillow Group (Z -1.72%) (ZG -1.84%) owns a collection of 10 real estate businesses leveraging technology to improve the homebuying and selling experience. It's suffering through a tumultuous period right now, since it announced the closure of its home-flipping segment, Zillow Offers, after making substantial losses.
Its stock has collapsed by 74% from its all-time high as a result, but it caught a 12% gain after its Feb. 10 earnings report showed a faster-than-expected wind down of the troubled segment, with smaller losses. And Zillow has unveiled plans for a new "housing super-app," which will build upon its existing market-leading app that boasts three times more daily users than its nearest competitor.
The new iteration will expand Zillow's services to capture a greater slice of the housing market's $300 billion in annual transaction fees. Users will be connected to Zillow's partners to facilitate buying, selling, and financing, among other things. The company estimates these solutions will generate $5 billion in annual revenue by 2025, making Zillow an unrivaled digital real estate powerhouse.
But the company will have some serious work to do, because the now-closed Zillow Offers was responsible for $6 billion of the company's $8 billion in revenue during 2021. It won't be easy to replace.
Image source: Getty Images.
3. Bill.com: Up 39%
Running a small business isn't easy, especially if it's a one-person operation. Tracking invoices and payments can be challenging in high volumes, and that's the problem Bill.com (BILL -2.29%) solves. Its cloud-based digital in-box is an aggregator for invoices to prevent them from being lost, missed, or sent to the wrong place. Then, its integrations with leading accounting software platforms allow one-click payments, seamlessly logging the transactions in the books.
Bill.com reported its fiscal second-quarter results on Feb. 3, and blew away all expectations. It generated $156.5 million in total revenue, which represented 190% year-over-year growth. The company is still in its growth phase, so it doesn't have a history of profitability, but on an adjusted basis, it managed to deliver a break-even quarter, a step in the right direction.
But perhaps the most significant development in Bill.com's fiscal second-quarter report was its increase in guidance. The company now expects up to $600 million in revenue for the fiscal full year, up from the $541 million it predicted in the first quarter. Also, it expects a significant narrowing of its adjusted fiscal full-year loss, to $0.43 per share, down from $0.77.
The company's 2021 acquisitions of Divvy and Invoice2go have allowed it to expand into new verticals, and clearly it's paying off.
4. Snap: Up 61%
Social media giant Snap (SNAP 6.70%) is one of the top performers this earnings season. It told the market it has recovered more quickly than expected from the privacy changes imposed by smartphone device makers Apple and Alphabet's Google, which owns the Android operating system.
It was a welcome relief for investors after its fierce rival, Meta Platforms, revealed significant struggles with the same issue just days before in its own report, warning the new rules could cost that company $10 billion this year.
Snap reported a record-high $4.1 billion in full-year 2021 revenue, a 64% increase from 2020. It also had its first-ever profitable period in the fourth quarter, and after years of delivering losses, analysts think 2022 could be the first time it generates a full-year profit.
But Snap's most exciting prospects might come over the long term, as it follows an approach to the metaverse that differs from the conventional path. Investors might benefit from holding its stock while it continues to build on its augmented-reality technology to bring that vision to life.
