Google Stock Halted After Early Earnings Release - East Idaho News
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Google Stock Halted After Early Earnings Release

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Getty 101812 StockExchangeTraders?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1350584969459Kim Steele/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Google shares (NASDAQ: GOOG) halted trading Thursday after its disappointing third-quarter earnings were released prematurely because of a mistake by its financial printer.

Shares of Google halted at $687.30 on Thursday afternoon, down about 9 percent since Wednesday’s close, after a near-meteoric rise this summer. On Thursday early afternoon, the stock halted trading at the company’s request to Nasdaq of news pending, as opposed to a circuit breaker.

Google released a statement that said the printer had mistakenly filed its financial document with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company traditionally releases its earnings after the stock market closes.

“Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorization,” Google’s statement read. “We have ceased trading on NASDAQ while we work to finalize the document. Once it’s finalized we will release our earnings, resume trading on NASDAQ and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30 PM PT.”

Analysts noted that the earnings report was clearly a draft, with the words, “PENDING LARRY QUOTE” printed in the filing, referring to Google’s CEO Larry Page.

R.R. Donnelley, the biggest printer for companies, is based in Chicago and is ranked 249 of the Fortune 500 largest U.S. companies, according to its website.

R.R. Donnelley did not immediately return a request for comment.

Prior to the earnings release, Google announced a major Android event in New York City at the end of the month and announced a new $249 laptop based on its Chrome operating system.

The earnings and revenue in Google’s earnings report was lower than analysts had forecasted, in part driven by a 15 percent drop in costs per click. Profit was down 20 percent to $2.18 billion while revenue was $11.33 billion.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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