Why did Alphabet stock jump today? Q4 earnings, stock split ignite shares
Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) shares surged on Wednesday after the tech giant posted fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates handily, while adding that it was splitting its stock 20-for-1.



For the period ending December 31, Alphabet earned $30.69 a share, on revenue of $75.33 billion. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) smashed the estimates of Wall Street analysts, who had forecast the company to earn $27.24 a share, on $71.83 billion in revenue.



The majority of the company's revenue came from Google advertising, which included sales from search, YouTube ads and Google network ads. Such advertising revenue totaled $61.2 billion, up from $46.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.


Alphabet shares surged nearly 8% to $2,972, shortly after 3:30 p.m. EST, though they had been up more than 10% earlier in the session.



In addition, Alphabet said it would implement a 20-for-1 stock split "in the form of a one-time special stock dividend" on each of the company's Class A, Class B and Class C stock. If the split is approved by Alphabet stockholders, all shareholders as of July 1 will receive new company shares on July 15.



On the company's earnings call, Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said Alphabet's focus for 2022 will be on "evolving our knowledge and information productivity" and that investments in areas such as artificial intelligence "will be key" throughout the year.


"We're deeply investing in AI, and applying that across the company, but particularly in the area of search," Pichai said.


Another area of strength that Pichai highlighted was the company's Google Cloud business, which rose by almost 45% from a year ago, to $5.54 billion.





A number of Wall Street analysts raised their price targets on Alphabet following the results, including Truist analyst Youssef Squali, who hiked his price target to $3,600 per share, up from $3,400 prior to the results. 


Last month, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) said it was pushing to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit brought upon by several states, including Texas, that charged the search-engine giant with abusing dominance in online advertising.