Gilead Sciences Falls Ever-So-Slightly After Q4 Earnings Beat

Gilead Sciences GILD is down less than one percent in after hours trading after the company announced its fourth quarter results. The company reported a Q4 EPS of $0.55 versus the Street estimate of $0.50. Earnings per share were up 10 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue arrived at $3.12 billion versus the Street estimate of $2.85 billion. Sales were up 20 percent year-over-year. Gilead also announced that product sales increased 21 percent to $3.04 billion for the fourth quarter of 2013. This is notably higher than the $2.51 billion that Gilead reported during the fourth quarter of 2012. Full year product sales rose to $10.8 billion (up from $9.4 billion in 2012). Sales of Stribild, Complera, Eviplera and Sovaldi were attributed to the company's continued success. Antiviral product sales also increased, rising 22 percent to $2.64 billion during the fourth quarter. For all of 2013, antiviral product sales reached $9.34 billion -- up from $8.14 billion during the previous year. At market close yesterday (Monday, February 3, 2014), Gilead was up more than four percent year-to-date. The stock has performed well over the past year, rising more than 99 percent since February 4, 2013. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.