Google’s stock price fell more than 9% shortly after noon ET when, the company says, publisher R.R. Donnelley & Sons released a draft of its earnings report “without authorization.”
Please note This is not official news for the quarter. The search giant reported Q3 net earnings of $2.18B, down 20.3% vs the period last year, on revenues of $11.53B, +18.6%. That’s short of the $11.86B analysts expected.
Plus earnings per share of $9.03 was was below the $10.65 that the Street anticipated. One reason for the decline: Google $349M in charges related to its acquisition in May of Motorola.
NASDAQ suspended trading in the stock while the company and traders sort out what happened from the early release of the earnings report, which was supposed to be made public after the market closes.