Gilead beats Street 4Q forecasts

Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings of $3.11 billion.

The Foster City, California-based company said it had profit of $2.34 per share. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions and stock option expense, came to $2.70 per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.43 per share.

The HIV and hepatitis C drugmaker posted revenue of $7.32 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $7.17 billion.

Gilead expects full-year earnings to be 84 cents to 91 cents per share.

Gilead shares have increased 2 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased slightly more than 2 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $73.13, a fall of 14 percent in the last 12 months.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on GILD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/GILD

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Keywords: Gilead Sciences, Earnings Report