MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Google shares surged 16 percent Friday — a one-day gain of more than $65 billion — after a promising quarterly earnings report delivered a day earlier by the company's new chief financial officer.
The jump beats Apple's $45 billion rally in April 2012, which also followed an earnings report, according to Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Silverblatt said it was the "biggest dollar gain of anybody. Just being in that kind of an area is amazing."
To find surges of a similar ratio, he had to look back to 1982 when IBM was dominating the PC market. Google's full market value reached about $468 billion, or $699.62 a share.
Ruth Porat, a former Morgan Stanley executive, arrived as Google's chief financial officer just after Memorial Day, meaning that the bright financial results she announced had been set in motion before her arrival. But her comments also signaled a new long-term focus on cost discipline that pleased investors.
"People are understandably optimistic about the future," said Scott Kessler, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, who remains skeptical about the company's direction, in part because of the risks associated with being an antitrust target of the European Union.
Investors were also pleased by comments that suggested Google could position itself for a shareholder payout it long resisted by buying back stocks or paying dividends.
Better advertising results on YouTube and mobile devices drove Google to beat profit and revenue expectations, though Porat, citing competitive reasons, did not provide as much of a detailed breakdown of those results as investors wanted.
