Susquehanna Maintains Bullish Stance on Google (GOOGL) (GOOG) Despite Messy Qtr

Susquehanna analyst Brian Nowak reiterated a Positive rating and $700 price target on Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) following "a messy quarter full of one-timers and FX...but core GOOGL websites dollar growth remains strong."

Nowak commented, "Last night, GOOGL reported 1Q:14 net ad revenue 3% below us, but in-line with the Street. But the miss vs. us was driven by FX (much larger than expected exposure to Japan, Brazil, and Australia) and the ongoing clean-up of Network Sites as the Network line continues to be impacted by GOOGL’s self-inflicted decisions to clean up some low-quality affiliate traffic. Excluding the FX mis-modeling, total net revenue would have beaten us by ~3%...Do we wish it was cleaner? Yes. But is the story structurally broken? No. Rolling through 1Q and taking up forward opex (even excluding one-timers), we are lowering our 2014E EPS by 1% and 2015 EPS by 2%. Despite our lower EPS, our price target remains unchanged at $700 due to the increase in the market multiple. We continue to recommend GOOGL due to the strength of the core search business, continued product innovation, and improving monetization, which should allow GOOGL to take a growing share of the desktop and mobile online ad markets."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Google click here. For more ratings news on Google click here.

Shares of Google closed at $563.90 yesterday.

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