No Justice: Google Stock Plunges

[slaughterbeck]

The analysts who recently advised clients to sell Google have been proved prescient, as Google's now-public fight with the Department of Justice has led to a sell-off.

Shares of GOOG dropped dramatically today, nearly 9 percent, to close at $399.46, 8.47 percent off the open of $438.70. Analysts from Standard & Poor's and Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Google to "sell" on January 18th, a day before the news of a Department of Justice filing in San Jose against Google became public.

Advisories from those analysts, Scott Levitt of S&P and Scott Kessler of Stifel Nicolaus, became known early on the morning of the 18th. Google opened at $467.11 that morning and closed at $444.91. A small drop, but nothing like what was to come.

News of the DOJ filing against google became public on the 19th, with hundreds of stories following the disclosure that Google had been fighting DOJ for a year over subpoenas for voluminous amounts of data from its search databases.

Today, Google saw investors mete out the kind of punishment that Yahoo received after disclosing its financials for the fourth quarter, which barely missed Wall Street estimates. Trading volume of Google today was nearly triple that of the previous day, 41 million shares to 14 million on Thursday, as investors pocketed profits and bailed out.

Google announces its financials on January 31st. CEO Eric Schmidt and company definitely need to roll out positive numbers during the conference call. Otherwise, the Googlers may feel like the crew of the Andrea Gail in "The Perfect Storm."

Webpronews

 

[Lyte]

That's a pity... but if it hits the cellar ($xx - not likely), I'm buying!

Lyte

 

[kc3]

lol, too bad I didn't do any investing in them when they were about $100 a share, good thing I didn't start recently.

 

[JMJ]

The stock price was way overinflated as it was. I watched a story on the topic lastnight and what the DOJ is requesting won't even tell them what they want to know anyway.

They are asking for a weeks worth of queries and didn't even ask that billions of "scripted" queries be removed. Such as when the thousands of us query google for domain results. What they would be getting in turn is false data and building their case on that false data.

Building a case on false data sounds a bit familiar now doesn't it. But what else do you expect from our government.

 

[kc3]

Yeah, I kind of figured they would drop, usually things like this after such a high skyrocket fall. Kind of funny how it got so high, I'm not sure if it's very common to see stock over $120 let along $400.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

And I'm psychic....

http://www.namepros.com/showpost.php?p=903212&postcount=36 (Among others...)

-Allan :gl:

 

[Zeeble]

Just think the US government wiped Billions of $ off Google's market cap overnight.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Just think the US government wiped Billions of $ off Google's market cap overnight.

Mind you that I am still somewhat cynical, but this seemed to be nothing other than a good "excuse" for IB's and analyst to finally back off of their outrageous valuations.

I'm not saying that Google's situation is not w/o merit, but they've experienced hyper-inflationary pressures from analysts for some time now. I wouldn't place the blame of the Gov for Google's stock finally showing some downward pressures.

Just my .02

-Allan :gl:

 

[LeDomain]

A lot of internet small business is based on the success of Google...compared to the other Internet big brands (Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay)..

I hope this is just small correction (based on Yahoo pull back after their earnings results)...since Google is expected post results on 31st...

 

[timmaay]

let's see what google does around the 52 wk high mark ... it kinda looks like buyers have entered on the sell off from Friday

 

[VI5]

ha, i was about to loan £1000 off my dad to invest in google last week, glad he made me wait.

may be buying still though

 

[yandig]

GOOG is headed back up now...
Some analysts believe it will top $600 soon.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Some analysts believe it will top $600 soon.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it does, it will be the next "lesson" that we all remember when our grandkids ask us for financial advice...

Dear golly.

-Allan :gl:

 

[Venolus]

Google still is the king at the throne.
Be it any other drop, google will sure take a lift.

 

[kc3]

lol, I'd be pissed if it goes up 400% in one year like it did last time and I have yet to invest in them.

 

[ilcesco]

I don't think it will last too much. Remember that the main revenue flow of google is still the -advertising-. They continue to fill the market with new stocks, but they still refuse to give valid investiment plans for the future.
I don't know..

 

[IAmAllanShore]

No Justice: Google goes Commie
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/25/D8FBONMG7.html

 

[ilcesco]

No Justice: Google goes Commie
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/25/D8FBONMG7.html

:lol:

Within minutes of the launch of the new site bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," searches for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement showed scores of sites omitted and users directed to articles condemning the group posted on Chinese government Web sites.

Searches for other sensitive subjects such as exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, Taiwan independence, and terms such as "democracy", "Namepros" and "human rights" yielded similar results.


Do they have access to porn sites tho?

 

[kc3]

Meh, how about we all setup a fake corporation and fake it's assets than raise it's stock from $0.01 a share to $500.00 a share just to rub it in Google's face. Wait... I'm 18, going to jail this soon is not a good retirement plan even if retiring young is a goal of many people. Or we could create a real corporation targetted to male geeks, hahaha, NamePros XXX Edition. lol

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Hey, folks:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsa..._WEN9305_RTRUKOC_0_US-GOOGLE-EARNS.xml&rpc=23

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Google Inc. fell as much as 19 percent on Tuesday after the Web search company missed Wall Street quarterly earnings targets due to a higher-than-expected tax rate.

Earnings, excluding one-time items, were $1.54 per share, below the consensus expectations of $1.77, according to Reuters Estimates.

Since its August 2004 IPO, the company has beaten the consensus profit forecast by 10 percent to 40 percent and its shares have risen steadily, often spectacularly. The drop slashed billions off the company's market value.

"Its valuation means it's priced for perfection and perfection was not delivered this quarter," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment manager at Solaris Asset Management.

<Allan's comment = "Bah!">

Net income for the fourth quarter rose to $372.2 million, or $1.22 per diluted share, from the year earlier quarter's $204.1 million, or 71 cents a share.

Gross revenue grew 86 percent to $1.92 billion as advertising revenues soared, meeting analysts' targets.

Shares of Google later recovered slightly to $370, a loss of 15 percent, in volatile trading.

Google's tax rate was higher than expected by Wall Street, according to Reuters Estimates. At the tax rate initially forecast by Google, adjusted earnings would have been $1.81 per share, versus the consensus of $1.77.

Revenue growth forecasts had varied between 72 percent and 99 percent. Virtually all Google's revenue comes from sales of Web search-related advertising.

Revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs of $629 million, was $1.29 billion, nearly double the $642 million in revenue net of such costs it reported in the year-earlier fourth quarter.

Traffic acquisition costs refer to revenue that Google passes along to hundreds of affiliates, most importantly Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, which rely on Google's search system to serve up advertisements on their own sites.