Fast Money Blog- 2/7/25
Once again, the week on Wall Street saw more major stocks release their earnings reports.
Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG) reported Q4 2024 top line revenue of $96.5 billion, up 12% year-over-year.
Here’s what you need to know:
Overall Google Services revenues for the quarter, which includes Google Search and YouTube ads, increased 10% from last year to $84.1 billion, with YouTube ad sales up 13.8% year-over-year.
Cloud revenue climbed 30% to $12 billion.
For the full year 2024, revenue grew by 14%, or by $43 billion, reaching $350 billion
So Tyrone, why did the stock drop after these posting such good numbers?
Mainly because the cloud services segment showed a deceleration from the 35% rise seen in last quarter.
Plus, Alphabet announced its plans to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures as it builds out its AI offerings, worrying Wall Street investors.
However, because of their growing ad network and cloud revenue I still recommend GOOG as a long-term hold.
Next up was The Walt Disney Company (DIS), who posted top line revenue for Q1 2025 of $24.7 billion, up 5% from a year earlier.
The bright spot for Disney was their Entertainment revenue, which includes its streaming services. Revenue for this segment was $10.87 billion, up 9% for the quarter year-over-year.
Entertainment Revenue Details You Need to Know
Alone, streaming revenue was up 9%, to $6 billion and streaming operating profit reached $293 million, a big improvement from a loss of $138 million in the same quarter last year.
While the number of total Disney+ subscribers dropped 1% to 124.6 million, Hulu subscribers rose 3% to 53.6 million.
Content Sales/Licensing and Other revenue for Q1 was up 34% year-over-year and its operating income increased $536 million for the quarter.
In this segment, Disney continued its box-office success from last year, with strong performances from Moana 2 (which recently crossed $1 billion globally at the box office) as well as Mufasa: The Lion King, which has so far taken in more than $650 million globally. Disney’s studios also received 15 Oscar nominations this year at the 2025 Oscars.
Disney’s Experiences revenue is still struggling, up slightly year-over-year, but operating income for U.S. parks was down 5%, mostly due to Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, which forced closures and cancellations at Disney World.
I think the turn around in Disney’s streaming profits and revenues has been brilliantly choreographed and their success at the box office is quite an achievement, however at this time, I would not recommend DIS stock as a trade or a hold. I say this because digital media companies are still seeing an active state of fluctuation in revenue generation.
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) reported another strong fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 results were outstanding.
Revenue for Q4 came in at $187.8 billion, up 10% year-over-year.
Net income was $20 billion for quarter, up 88% year-over-year.
Amazon’s cloud services business continues to be the fastest-growing and most profitable part of the business, growing 19% year over year for a Q4 total of $28.8 billion.
It’s worth noting that Amazon signed new cloud agreements with U.S. Army, Intuit, PayPal, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., Reddit and The Hertz Corporation, to name a few.
For the full year of 2024, Amazon had revenue of $638.0 billion, up 11% year-over-year and net income of $59.2 billion, up 94.7%.
I think Amazon's Q4 earnings are terrific, even though there was a sell-off after earnings, due to slower anticipated growth for next quarter.
If you are a long term share holder you should be excited about the continued growth in the cloud, and I think the stock will go higher as we move further into 2025.
As an AMZN trader, it’s all about selling 3 week out-of-the-money covered calls against your shares.
Remember we are still in the middle of earnings season, with more S&P components due to release their earnings reports in the next few weeks.
Stay open and stay positive!
2025 will be a great year for revenue growth.
Tyrone Jackson, The Wealthy Investor