Shares of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, Financial), a technology company and parent company of Google, are down more than 3% since the start of November and over 1.47% to start the week. The technology giant is facing a negative response to mixed earnings and a dip in the tech sector.
Alphabet’s third quarter resulted in $9.19 billion in revenue and earnings of $13.06 per share.
Earnings performance shows a 36.5% rate of growth, but revenue expectations of $33.7 billion were not reached.
YouTube remains a positive for Google, with the platform helping Google properties revenue increase $4.33 billion. Video advertising growth has increased, especially when company develops engagement through a community watching and commenting on videos. Improvements in ad formats and delivery has also led to desktop growth on the platform.
Growth was affected by a weakening of the U.S. dollar when compared to other currencies.
YouTube engagement ads continued to help push paid clicks in the company’s advertising programs, boosting growth in the segment.
Google investors remain concerned that they have not seen Alphabet CEO Larry Page in years, and recent scandals at the company are causing some to question whether or not Alphabet needs new leadership.
Google employees staged a walkout last Thursday, with thousands of employees exiting their jobs to bring Google’s handling of sexual harassment to light. Reports suggest that Google enabled gender discrimination at the company, and the top managers failed to address the issues directly.
Page remained missing-in-action while Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, attended a tech conference in New York.
Google has been accused further of offering large severance payouts to those that have agreed to leave the company amid sexual harassment and misconduct claims. Andy Rubin, part inventor of the Android operating system, was given a $90 million severance package although he reportedly engaged in sexual misconduct with employees.
Richard DeVaul, the cofounder of Project Loon, also faced allegations of sexual misconduct before leaving Alphabet last week. He resigned less than a week after the allegations, and he was director of the company’s Alphabet X program.
Allegations against DeVaul suggest that the company asked the woman to keep quiet while DeVaul stayed with the company.
Security vulnerabilities, namely with Google+, also show that the company has failed to protect user data and report data breaches in a timely manner.
Google stock remains down this year, falling more than 0.16% to $1,055 Monday with a 52-week high of $1,291.44 a share.
Disclosure: Author does not have any stake in the listed equities.
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