Earnings announcements from publicly traded companies are supposed to go like clockwork in this day and age. Usually they show up before the start of a trading day or just after the stock market closes. Today, the third quarter financial numbers for Google were posted up publicly in the middle of the trading day today.
Reuters reports that the results were posted up about four hours ahead of time. Google put the blame finger on its financial printers, RR Donnelley, which the company claimed posted a draft of Google's results without their approval.
The report said that Google's revenues for the third quarter came in at $11.3 billion, below the expectations of financial analysts who thought the company would have revenues of $11.86 billion for the quarter. Google had a profit of $2.18 billion for the quarter, which was down 20 percent from the same period a year ago.
The early announcement caused Google's stock to plummet on the NASDAQ market. Google announced they would halt trading temporarily, but not before the stock price went down by over nine percent. Google said it will hold its quarterly financial conference call as scheduled at 4:30 pm later today.
Update: Trading has now resumed but Google's stock price is still trading over eight percent lower as of this writing
Source: Reuters
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