Shares of Google closed at a new high Friday. The surge comes on the heels of a few positive analyst reports and news Thursday that co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page landed on the top 10 list of Forbes' richest Americans, tied at No. 5, each with a net worth of $18.5 billion, a value that keeps increasing as Google's shares climb. Google rose $7.27, or 1.32 percent, to a new high of $560.10. In July, its shares hit a high for the year of $555.00. Thursday, a Bear Stearns analyst wrote a report on how Google plans to reach $100 billion in revenue, a goal that Hewlett-Packard expects to achieve just this fiscal year. HP hopes to be the first technology company to hit $100 billion in sales, after realizing some benefits from its hard-fought merger in 2003 with rival Compaq, and improvements and efficiencies in its various businesses under Chief Executive Mark Hurd. Robert Peck, the Bear Stearns analyst, did not give a time frame for Google to reach the $100 billion goal, but he hosted a conference call with another consultant Thursday and they outlined six important areas for Google: searches on mobile devices, online video, publishing, business software applications, its e-payment system that competes with PayPal, and multimedia advertising. Peck wrote that reaching the $100 billion goal in revenues will require the Mountain View company to meet several challenges, "but stopping the Google juggernaut is not going to be an easy task" for its competitors. Rob Sanderson, an analyst at American Technology Research, believes that Google will eventually hit $685, a price target he endorsed in July, up from $600. He said he sees big potential for the company's growth outside its core markets of the United States and the United Kingdom. "The real story is the rest of the world is quickly catching up to the markets like the U.S. and the U.K.," Sanderson said. "The rest of world is by far the fastest growing segment" of the Internet economy. Meanwhile, shares of HP were also up, tacking on 48 cents to $50.57, giving the company a market capitalization of $130.4 billion Friday. Google's market cap now stands at $175 billion. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_6969157