Why AstraZeneca Topped the Market on Thursday

A fresh earnings release was the news development powering AstraZeneca's (NASDAQ: AZN) share price higher on Thursday. Investors were clearly impressed by the pharmaceutical company's numbers, as the stock closed the day more than 2% higher in value. This was notably better than the 0.4% bump of the S&P 500 index.AstraZeneca unveiled both its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 results before market open today, revealing that its total revenue was $14.89 billion. This represented a meaty 24% improvement over Q4 2023's figure. On the bottom line the company's "core" (i.e., non-GAAP) earnings per share rose even more sharply, advancing by 44% to $2.09. There was quite some distance between AstraZeneca's performance and analyst estimates for the quarter. On average, pundits following the company were anticipating it would post a lower revenue number ($14.15 billion) and a far lower adjusted net profit of $1.06 per share. Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool