Google's Stock Price Soars to New High

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc.'s stock reached a new high Friday, reflecting Wall Street's renewed faith in the Internet search leader as it introduces new ways for advertisers to reach its steadily expanding online audience.

The shares climbed to $560.70 in afternoon trading, eclipsing the previous peak of $558.58 attained in mid-July, just days before the Mountain View-based company disillusioned investors with a second-quarter profit that fell below analyst estimates.

Google shares later settled back to $559.98, up $7.15, or 1.3 percent. That left the 9-year-old company with a market value of almost $175 billion, more than long-established technology bellwethers like Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. The stock has increased by more than six-fold from its initial public offering price of $85 in August 2004.

The latest run-up in Google's stock represents a turnaround from a little over a month ago when the shares briefly dipped below $500 amid the stock market turmoil triggered by a home mortgage meltdown that raised fears about a recession.

Those worries have lessened because of the Federal Reserve Bank's decision to lower short-term interest rates by 0.5 percentage point in a move expected to free up more money for consumers and businesses to spend.

Google stands to benefit because it runs the largest advertising network on the world's hottest marketing medium, the Internet.

Despite aggressive challenges by rivals like Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., Google has been able to widen its lead in search — the activity that triggers the text-based ad links that have become a huge moneymaker.

In August, Google handled 54 percent of all U.S. search requests, up 50 percent at the same time last year, according to the research firm Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. Yahoo lagged well behind at 20 percent followed by Microsoft at 13 percent.

The formidable lead enabled Google to earn $1.9 billion on $7.5 billion in revenue during the first half of the year. The company usually makes even more money during the second half because of the advertising blitz that accompanies the holiday shopping season.

Google already is trying to boost its profits by rolling out other marketing options besides staid advertising links.

Last month, Google began showing video ads on its subsidiary, YouTube, the Web's most popular video channel. Earlier this week, Google dramatically increased the number of ads distributed to mobile phones and unveiled a system for displaying ads on "widgets" — mini-applications that are embedded on Web pages.

Investors are betting Google's dominance, coupled with its expansion efforts, will yield the robust earnings growth needed to support its rich valuation. Google's price-to-earnings multiple — a widely used yardstick for appraising publicly held companies — now stands at 37 times its estimated earnings for this year. By comparison, Microsoft's price-to-earnings multiple is hovering around 17.

Several industry analysts already are forecasting Google shares will soon surpass $600. The stock eclipsed $500 for the first time 10 months ago.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3f7BjnpukxiCWKtrqt1Sinik60w

 

Not really into stocks but I dont find this surprising. Google is the top dog for sure.

 

It keeps growing in a market it basically created a need for. The thing is, google ads show very irrelevant ads. They should now start working on moderating content.

 

Wow.

Was expecting this for quite a while anyways since Google announced the G Mobile stuff.

 

Since the Adwords algo change I have to bid 50% more for my main keywords, I am spending roughly 15%-20% more monthly. What can I do I have no choice. They have an inelastic product, all they have to do is keep making tweaks so that you have to pay more. The FTC is the only competition I see to google.

So far revenue growth has been mostly from subscriber/customer growth, now they are starting to put on the squeeze and maximize profit. I think that this could very well be a $800-1000 stock in 12 months.

 

I m tellin u guys, better start putting some cash in GOOG

 

yeah that sounds like a goode thing to me

 

for $560 per share? Forget that...

 

I think I could find way better uses for $560 that would give me a better ROI. I'm sure a lot of people in here could turn that money into $700 in a few weeks time with very little effort. Does anyone really see GOOG going to $700 within the next month?

 

That's way too much! I better invest my money or other stocks...