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Square Inc (NYSE: SQ) shares dropped 6% despite the digital payment company reporting a fourth-quarter earnings beat on Tuesday afternoon.
Square reported fourth-quarter adjusted EPS of 32 cents on revenue of $3.16 billion. Both numbers topped consensus analyst estimates of 24 cents and $3.1 billion, respectively. Revenue was up 139.6% from a year ago.
Despite the impressive fourth-quarter numbers, Square said gross profits were up just 15% in January, suggesting a significant drop in growth in 2021. The company also reported buying $170 million in
Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), which now represents about 5% of Square’s total cash position.
Deceleration Concerns: KeyBanc analyst Josh Beck said transactions and bitcoin revenue exceeded his expectations, while subscription and services growth slightly missed his targets.
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Inside the Market’s roundup of some of today’s key analyst actions
Ahead of the start of first-quarter reporting season for Canadian banks next week, Canaccord Genuity analyst Scott Chan raised his earnings per share expectations by 3 per cent, citing “better credit conditions and continued tailwinds from market sensitive businesses.”
That led him to increase his target prices for shares of the Big 6 banks by an average of 3 per cent.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Global Payments Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Winnie Smith. Please go ahead.
Winnie Smith
Good morning, and welcome to Global Payments fourth quarter and full-year 2020 conference call.
Before we begin, I d like to remind you that some of the comments made by management during today s conference call contain forward-looking statements about expected operating and financial results. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including the impact of COVID-19 and economic conditions on our future operations that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mastercard Q4 and full-year 2020 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today, War Kneeshaw, head of investor relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
War Kneeshaw
Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Tanya. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth-quarter 2020 earnings call. We hope you re all safe and sound. With me today are Michael Miebach, our chief executive officer; and Sachin Mehra, our chief financial officer.
Following comments from Michael and Sachin, the operator will announce your opportunity to get into the queue for the Q&A session. It is only then that the queue will open for questions. You can access our earnings release, supplemental performance data and the slide deck that accompany this call in the investor relations section of our website, mastercard.com. Additionally, the r
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