Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported strong 3Q20 earnings driven by its Call of Duty franchise. Revenues and earnings were above management guidance and the even higher analyst estimates. Management raised the 2020 outlook, and initial comments on 2021 suggest management believes earnings can grow against the tough 2020 COVID-boosted results. Over the summer, we made sales […]
Facebook continues to perform well despite the economic impact of the pandemic and negative publicity surrounding privacy and political issues. Ad revenue grew 22% during 3Q20, powering a better than expected earnings report. This is the second consecutive quarter that Facebook had better than expected advertising growth, supporting the idea that it is a COVID […]
Apple reported strong 4Q20 earnings with headline numbers for revenue and EPS ahead of Wall Street estimates. The stock responded by trading down -6%, however, due to the composition of revenue and a refusal to provide detailed top line guidance for the December quarter. Revenue was up 1% vs a year ago and about 2% […]
Alphabet returned to nearly pre-pandemic growth in 3Q20 led by Cloud and YouTube. Advertising revenues grew 15% adjusted for foreign currency, just below the high-teens level of late 2019. Revenues, margins, and operating profits all surprised materially to the upside, with the overall results relative to consensus estimates the biggest positive surprise in many years. […]
Comcast remains a tale of three cities: cable, NBC Universal (NBCU), and Sky. Fortunately for investors, the dominant business – cable – is a clear COVID winner with attractive secular prospects. On the other hand, NBCU and Sky are COVID losers facing secular challenges. Results in 3Q20 were very strong in cable led by broadband. […]
IBM reported 3Q20 earnings last week that were largely in line with expectations and consistent with trends over the past few quarters. The report came on the heels of a major announcement from the company that it will be spinning a big piece of its slow-growing business to increase concertation on its cloud and artificial […]
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported better than expected 2Q20 earnings, beating on both the top and bottom line. EPS of 97 cents crushed the consensus of 69 cents. Despite the 28 cent beat, management raised 2020 guidance by 45 cents to $3.05. Management showed a high degree of confidence in trends for the rest of 2020 […]
ViacomCBS (VIAC) reported better than expected results in 2Q20. Revenues were down -12% but good cost controls and some expense timing benefits led to adjusted EBITDA +8%. Free cash flow was much better than expected even after the timing benefits. Overall, the quarter showed progress for a company that has been viewed very negatively by […]
Home Depot shares are up about 50% since Northlake purchased them for clients in March. This is far beyond what we expected at the time. This also explains why the stock has sold off about -4% since reporting fantastic 2Q20 earnings. We have often discussed how in the short term stocks trade based on expectations. […]
Nexstar Media Group (NXST) reported better than expected results in 2Q20 across revenue, EBITDA, and FCF. The stock initially rallied sharply as would be expected but other traditional media companies that reported over the past 24 hours had lesser results and that eventually caught up with NXST and the shares traded down -4% which amazingly […]
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