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Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

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Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#41

Post by samfisher83 »

daave wrote: post #36
samfisher83 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand the usefulness of search ads and ads on maps, but if I see an ad on youtube it is unlikely I am going to go buy a product.

..and yet, TV advertising is still a huge business YouTube can target ads much better than TV, and with TrueView ads the advertiser only pays if the viewer doesn't skip, so more of the revenue is going to be coming from ads that mutually add value (at least that's the theory)

I don't get TV ads either. What is the effectiveness of it?

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#42

Post by 101km »

spectrum1234 wrote: post #38

So crazy these numbers aren't in thousands like most companies' financials but in millions...

They aren't the only ones. Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results : http://images.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q4FY16DataSummary.pdf

"(Units in thousands, Revenue in millions)"

Walmart: http://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2017/Q3/Q...

And so on.

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#44

Post by xapata »

samfisher83 wrote: post #41
daave wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..and yet, TV advertising is still a huge business YouTube can target ads much better than TV, and with TrueView ads the advertiser only pays if the viewer doesn't skip, so more of the revenue is going to be coming from ads that mutually add value (at least that's the theory)

I don't get TV ads either. What is the effectiveness of it?

Coke tastes better if you know it's a Coke. That's what a top-notch advertising department does for you. Well, that and early memories of drinking Coca-Cola on a warm summer night. It's the real thing, baby.

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#45

Post by throwaway91111 »

ariwilson wrote: post #10
aresant wrote: post #7

Editorializing: Paid clicks on Google properties +43% - "yaaay we're driving more paid search!" Cost-per-click on Google properties -16% - "ouch our advertisers are seeing less value on these add'l clicks!" To me the second part of this is going to be most interesting to watch - if the clicks they are onboarding are lower quality, this is going to be a net negative.

If the half of the world without an Internet connection gets online and starts clicking on ads, their clicks are probably going to be less valuable than the existing rich world clicks. I don't see how that is a net negative for anyone, though.

Well the use of ads is negative for everyone.

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#46

Post by Johnie »

theelfismike wrote: post #5

Interesting the effective tax rate went from 5% last year to 22% this year. What would cause that?

Ruth mentioned this on the call:

"Porat replied, “In terms of, you noted the one-time item, there are really two I’m actually going to call out. One was in the cost of revenues. I noted that as equipment costs were elevated by some one-time charges, and so there was some pressure there. And then the other item I noted was with respect to our tax rate. I noted that there was slightly elevated tax rate this quarter. It’s always affected by the geographic mix of results but we did have a discrete that affected the US tax rate, to make that clear.”"

It still doesn't answer the question. Basically a one time charge increased the tax rate. In one of the live blogs, an analyst mentioned some windfall tax from Europe. But now I can't find it.

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#47

Post by afthonos »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
afthonos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orthogonal to my peeve. :-) After earnings, there are two questions: 1. How did X do? 2. How did analysts think X would do? Perfect analysts would predict Xs earnings every time, and the stock would be unaffected by announcements. But analysts aren't perfect. That's ok! What's not ok is that the headlines are invariably "X misses expectations". No, the expectations were wrong . I'm not saying a company can't do well…

If you're used to reading the financial news, the headline is fine, since you know what they're talking about.

I'm not so sure. "Analysts Miss X Results" immediately makes you wonder "why", which is a fair question. "X Misses Expectations" instead makes you think X had a bad quarter. I think forcing people to make the conversion in their head every time is bad headlining.

Of course, there's something to be said for it being a "term of art". This may just be my layman's interpretation.

Re: Alphabet Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Results

#48

Post by hiddencost »

neximo64 wrote: post #35
kbutler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reversion to the mean" is the process where later data is more typical than an outlying datum, so aberrations caused by outliers are averaged out, giving a result progressively closer to the mean of the data as subsequent data is added.

In short, that the rate over a decade instead of over a year is the official corporate tax rate. For Google it doesn't work out this way, still.

You really should Google the phrase "reversion to the mean", because you clearly have no idea what is going on but remain confident.
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