24/7 Wall St.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is scheduled to release its first-quarter financial results after the markets close on Monday. The consensus estimates are calling for $10.56 in earnings per share (EPS) and $37.34 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, Google’s parent said it had EPS of $13.33 on $31.15 billion in revenue.

Earlier this quarter, Alphabet confirmed that AMD would be the winner of its new Stadia cloud-based streaming video game service. It turns out that the Google team may be using AMD for more than just gaming, and that means broader market penetration at the expense of more expensively priced chipsets from rivals.

Also, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that Alphabet would take a $1.7 billion charge this quarter to pay a European Commission (EC) fine levied for infringement of “European competition law.” That brings the total amount of EC fines against the search engine giant to $9.32 billion.

Separately, Alphabet’s self-driving car business has struck a deal with American Axle and Manufacturing to lease an idled plant in Detroit. Waymo plans to install its self-driving systems in vehicles supplied by Fiat Chrysler and Jaguar.

Overall, Alphabet has outperformed the broad markets, with its stock up about 22% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the stock is up closer to 25%.

A few analysts weighed in on Alphabet ahead of the report:

• BMO Capital Markets has a Market Perform rating and a $1,200 price target.
• Needham has a Buy rating.
• Nomura has an Outperform rating.
• William Blair has an Outperform rating.
• Wells Fargo has a Buy rating with a $1,300 price target.
• Wedbush has an Outperform rating with a $1,350 price target.

Shares of Alphabet were last seen trading at $1,279.53, in a 52-week range of $977.66 to $1,291.44. The consensus price target is $1,357.42.

24/7 Wall St.
5 Total Return Stocks to Buy Now That All Pay 5% or Higher Dividends