well, what you are refering to is a sub set of whtther or not it is "sexy" I am going to take the other side of that argument just to demonstrate a point. consider this: 1. 70% of the stock is owned by intitutions...do you think fidelity gives a crap if it is 450 or 45? i work for an intitution..i assue you it doent matter...just another zero. we are talking BILLIONS of dollars out there right? 2. Berkshire hathaway. $3000 and $100,000 repectively per share type. not only has it not slowed them down, it has created exclusivity 3. Think of 2 recent examples...HANS-4 for 1 splt...fell off the map. GS still a $200 stock...hangin in pretty strong. i realize that i am cherry picking there. 4. the little guy here doesnt matter. if you buy 100 shares or 10..you are just along for the ride. guys like you and me dont make up the majority of the group think if we think it is pricey or not. i would say the high price adds to the "sexy" factor...and actually helps.
you have #2, 3, and 4...you missed #1. I am not trying to be difficult or argumentative, but it is important to understand WHAT starts the upward or downward cycles. any earnings report is reactionary not causal. earning come months after the fact that something changed. right?
Dac, I agree earnings represent the past but they can provide causation for a move when the reported figures are unanticipated by the market. If the slowing of earnings growth in anticipated by the market the stock will fall. This is what we are seeing. IMO It may not actually happen. But you have to ask yourself where will the future earnings will come from for Google. You tube - costs to operate are higher then search and will never have the same margins. Lawsuits are just noise here. What else is there, international expansion, how is that going? Web based docs and spreadsheets, they are good to use but how many people/companies will pay for it? If you know let me know, maybe you can change my mind. AA30
That online office suite should not exist really. Have you tried the "Word processor"?? It is a really buggy, lame, pos. I don't really see why they leaked that stuff, it is so far from being ready for prime time, and $50 a year? Please... I think they bought Writely just to get the patents or something, if they build on it to where it does everything Word can do, then they will have a serious inroad into Usofts desktop monopoly but for the near term, forget it. Eventually people might realize that their documents are more secure with Google than in the hands of their employees and give it up and pay Google for usage but not in the near term. There will always be people that think their stuff is safer in their own facility but I got a huge laugh the last few weeks. My wife is handling a trustee account and trying to get a checking account moved into the trust. A credit union is giving us the royal runaround, we consulted two lawyers, both of which said the Credit Union is nuts. The Credit Union guys are about security and fraud detection, etc. so they are careful to the point of being insane, meanwhile I read blogs from some guys that had hacked a Credit Union by sprinkling some USB drives around where the employees took smoke breaks and sure enough, one of them took one into work and plugged it in!!
It had a great run... now people are on to better things, like Uranium stocks, Solar stocks, Nickel stocks, Moly stocks. Trade what is in vogue, don't buy something and wish it was.
Keyword: Had. I know it's WORTH more than it's priced at relative to it's growth, but that remains to be seen. Microsoft has no competition for Office or Windows, and it's coming in with Zune to compete head to head with IPod. I just bought my son a Zune... damned, that thing is amazing. If not for all of IPod's proprietary software, Zune would kill it. He's at an age where every kid has an IPod or Zune. With his bazillion friends, it's not hard to figure out which is the better system by direct comparison with kids who play both day in and out, every day. Zune, according to all of them, is hands down better, but doesn't yet have the support because its new, but it's coming. Will that make MSFT shoot through the roof? No, it's been out for a few months and MSFT hasn't budged. Perception is stronger than reality in the marketplace and the perception is that Google is overpriced. MANY retail investors don't even look at the valuations, they look at the price to make their buying decisions. $450 looks overpriced, and you can say what you want, but few people even know that MSFT is still at 2x the market cap of GOOG. That's why GOOG should split... 10 for 1 would be nice.
Shareholders will have difficulty ousting anybody - that's why they came public w/ 2 classes of stock. They're a public company that can act like they're private. As for making money, use options and some simple analysis. - rebreak of 200dma on 3/5 was a goldmine - higher lo retest of 200dma on 3/16 & 3/19 was also a bonanza - especially when it broke the daily T/L in place since 2/1 Even the low priced otm options tend to have good volume / liquidity and provide excellent returns w/ good moves For the buy & hold original poster, other than the (typically contrarian) news flow & hype - there has been little to recommend this stock since 11/06. However, now that many of the weak holders have exited and you have a better short-term chart pattern - you may see some upside .....