Alphabet shares slump 8% as Wall Street shows displeasure with results
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Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) saw its shares fall more than 8%, and nearly hit a 52-week-low on Wednesday, as investors and Wall Street analysts showed little enthusiasm for the online giant following its disappointing third-quarter earnings report.
Late Tuesday, Alphabet (GOOG) reported third-quarter earnings and sales that missed expectations. Among the issues affecting the company were a decline in YouTube ad revenue, which fell by 2% to $7.1B, or about $400M shy of analysts' forecasts.
Needham analyst Laura Martin was critical about Alphabet's (GOOG) lack of insight into some areas of gaining and retaining viewership and consumer engagement across its various platforms. 
"There was zero strategic discussion of how [the company] will transition its economics form mobile environments to better align with the structural shift of consumer time toward [large] screens, which lowers time spent and advertising revenue on mobile devices," Martin said. Martin maintained her buy rating and $160-a-share price target on Alphabet's (GOOG) (GOOGL) stock.
Mark Mahaney, of Evercore, left his outperform rating on Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) unchanged, but trimmed his price target on the company's stock to $120 a share from $130. Mahaney said he believes "the long-term thesis" on Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) remains "intact", but there are likely to some roadbumps in the months to come.
"We all should assume that advertising demand will continue to weaken into [2023], which will negatively impact even the most-resilient marketing platform, search," Mahaney said.
Speaking on a conference call Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said the company's results also showed the impact of a strong U.S. dollar, as exchange rates contributed to the company's revenue miss.
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai also said the company would slow down its hiring in the fourth quarter this year would be "significantly lower" than in the third quarter.