GOOG: Google

Top 32. Apr 25, 2005 4:30 PM

» passenger - Re: The great Google challenge. Wanna bet?

In response to The great Google challenge. Wanna bet? posted by Kirk:

One factor on Google's spetacular earning is the favorable tax rate (even mentioned in their earning conference call). One trick for those internet companies to do is to set up data/server center in another tax free place outside of US and route their traffic there to finish trasaction. As tax is based on the location where transaction happens, it is a sweet loophole. Maybe Uncle Sam should impose internet import tax(as the traffic routes back to the states) to reclaim those lost tax.

-- posted by passenger

Top 33. Jun 1, 2005 2:39 PM

» Bill_Duffy - Great Momentum Stock

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Cramer hypes this one daily, stock is on a parabolic rise, and the Fundamentals: Trailing P/E (ttm, intraday): 113.83 Forward P/E (fye 31-Dec-06)¹: 43.70 PEG Ratio (5 yr expected): 1.79 Price/Sales (ttm): 20.30 Price/Book (mrq): 21.53 Return on Equity (ttm): 33.79%

Damn, what an expensive stock: 20X Sales!!

But hey, what could go wrong???

Buy it just because everyone else is in???

-- posted by Bill_Duffy

URL http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...

Top 34. Sep 23, 2005 6:48 AM

» Kirk - Brin and Page Ranked 16th by Forbes, up from #43

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Brin's and Page's post-IPO wealth is accruing at speeds faster than Gates' wealth after Microsoft went public.

The richest

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett head the Forbes annual list of the wealthiest Americans, but Google's founders make a big move up.

Published in the Asbury Park Press 09/23/05
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Google Inc.'s mammoth initial public offering has netted its two co-founders an interesting side benefit: an entree into the upper echelons of Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans.

Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp.'s co-founder and chairman, was the nation's wealthiest person for the 11th straight year with a net worth of $51 billion, followed again by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman and chief executive Warren Buffett's $40 billion, according to Forbes, which released its annual rankings Thursday.

Perhaps more noteworthy is the ascent of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who were ranked 16th by Forbes with $11 billion each, up from No. 43 last year when they each had a net worth of $4 billion.

Google went public last year, but the Internet search engine returned to the capital markets this month with a follow-up offering of shares that raised $4.18 billion. The company has earned $1 billion since going public.

According to Forbes, whose reporters assembled the list through a series of interviews and company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Brin's and Page's post-IPO wealth is accruing at speeds faster than Gates' wealth after Microsoft went public.

Collectively, the top 10 richest Americans saw their collective net worth climb $125 billion, the magazine said. The poorest members of the list each had a net worth of $900 million.

Paul Allen, a childhood friend of Gates who co-founded Microsoft in 1975, was third wealthiest with $22.5 billion, while Dell Inc.'s chief executive and co-founder, Michael Dell, was fourth with $18 billion and Lawrence Ellison, chief executive of Oracle Corp., was No. 5 with a net worth of $17 billion.

The rest of the top 10 were members of the Walton family, relatives of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. Jim Walton and Christy Walton have $15.7 billion, while Forbes says S. Robson Walton has $15.6 billion. Alice Walton has $15.5 billion and Helen Walton has $15.4 billion.

Others on the Forbes 400 list to enjoy the fruits of high-tech and the Internet include Steven Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive who was No. 11 with $14 billion, and Amazon.com Inc.'s Jeff Bezos who has $4.8 billion and ranked 42nd.

But a significant number of Forbes 400 members also found there is money to be made in sports. Twenty-seven members of the list are sports investors, including owners of basketball and football teams as well as an English soccer team.

For example, Allen owns the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. And Malcolm Glazer, who ranks No. 258 with $1.3 billion, gained fame in this country but infamy in Britain this past spring after he bought a controlling stake in Manchester United, perhaps the world's best-known soccer team.

-- posted by Kirk

Top 35. Sep 23, 2005 7:39 AM

» Kirk - Google Charts

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I sure wish I had bought a few shares at the $85 IPO.

It was too risky for me, but this has the looks of "the next Microsoft." I read a rumor the other day that says Google has quotes out to make its own internet using fiber and they are funding a few "WiFi Hot Spots" around the US. This means they could morph into both a telecom and advertising company. I have ideas of how you can use your cell phone to do price comparisons as you shop... using the internet and Google technology.

YTD
<img width=452 height=366 src=http://www.marketwatch.com/charts/int-ad...>

Simply amazing how the PE continues to decline despite the rising price.

But look at how the PE is now only equal to that of MSFT at its peak in 2000

I bought MSFT for my personal portfolio back in 1994 when P/E was near 20…

FWIW, MSFT’s chart is a perfect example of what engineers call “overshoot.”

Since IPO at $85
<img width=520 height=468 src=http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Sharp... >

-- posted by Kirk

Top 36. Nov 19, 2005 6:23 AM

» SteveT - Google Faces Stiffer Competition

By TIERNAN RAY

GOOGLE HAS MADE SEARCHING web pages an engaging pastime, turning online direct marketing into a bold and highly profitable business.

The company's shares (ticker: GOOG) have soared nearly fivefold since its public offering in August 2004, passing the $400 mark last week. The company, with a market value of $119 billion, should soon surpass Yahoo! (YHOO) as the biggest online-ad seller. But Google could be hard pressed to sustain its enormous momentum as Web advertising goes mainstream and rivals encroach on its paid-search turf.

Competitors like Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! and even Google's partner, the America Online unit of Time Warner (TWX), which all have trailed in paid search, may turn out to be big winners as major advertisers move toward glitzy online branding campaigns.

Take the splashy ads Ford ran two years ago to kick off the NFL season: To promote its F-150 truck, the car maker bought spots on all the major sites, a "home-page takeover," as it's known in the business, and used software that grabbed the entire computer-screen image and shook it, says Greg Stuart, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau. "It was very powerful," says Stuart. "When you throw in sound, people would think there was an earthquake."

Notes Standard & Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler: "There's no question in my mind that mounting competition in the search-advertising segment is going to eventually restrain Google's revenue growth and margins." He expects Google's sales growth to slow from 91% this year to 64% next year, and has a Hold rating on the stock and a target of $364 -- nearly 10% below its recent price of $402.

Google has helped make fees for ads placed in Web-search results the largest chunk -- 40% -- of the projected $12 billion in total U.S. online-advertising revenues this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. With ads like these, Google earns a fee for providing a single line of text linking to the advertiser's Website. The ads appear above and beside the unpaid results of many Web searches.

Google controls about 37.6% of all U.S. Internet searches, topping Yahoo!'s 29.8%, Microsoft MSN's 15.6% and AOL's 9.1%, according to comScore Networks in Reston, Va.

Deft placement of ads in those search results helped Google top Wall Street's profit estimates in the third quarter by 11%, even as the company spent 29% more on general and administrative costs than in the previous quarter to hire more engineers to make searching still more engaging and to start new business initiatives.

Now Google is digging deeper into direct marketing, even as the needs of advertisers may be shifting. The company recently unveiled a service called Google Base, which lets individuals post listings of items for sale. The goal: to help Google siphon off classified ads from newspapers and online venues such as www.craigslist.com1.

But advertisers are spending up to a million dollars a pop, not for their names to be shown in search results but to fill Web pages with splashy banner ads similar to those they buy for the Super Bowl (see The Wall Street Journal, "Top Web Sites Build Up Ad Backlog, Raise Rates2," Nov. 16).

That trend may continue, as more broadband Internet connections turn users' online experiences from primarily surfing and searching to one that more closely resembles watching movies and television, predicts Anthony Gennaro, an equity analyst with Principal Global Investors, which manages $153 billion and owns Google shares. "You'll see the Web blossom as an entertainment medium. If I spend eight hours in front of the Internet, I won't spend four of them searching," he says.

Display ads, now just 20% of all online ads, could take a greater percentage as interactive video becomes ubiquitous.

Although the whole online advertising pie will grow, "it may be time for the pendulum to swing back to display" after a surge in search advertising, argues Ken Mallon, vice president, product development for Dynamic Logic, part of advertising conglomerate WPP. That could give portals like Yahoo! an advantage, because analysts regard its technology for displaying ads as far more mature than Google's.

At the same time, marketers increasingly demand Web campaigns that can better measure their ads' effectiveness, says Mallon.

For example, MSN can track a user's activity across many Web pages using "cookies," small pieces of code that record each page visited. Yahoo! can do the same with its 191 million active registered users who log in to check their e-mail accounts, where it has a dominant market share.

Some analysts say Google is just getting started working on ways to track behavior with new programs such as its "toolbar" software. "Yahoo! and MSN have a huge advantage," says Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. "They have more registered users."

"We are now broadening our platform to allow advertisers [to] create awareness for their brand," a Google spokeswoman says in response to Barron's Online's e-mailed questions. "We are constantly working on new product and feature improvements, in response to feedback from advertisers, publishers and users."

But some cautious analysts warn that Google's shares have priced in the highest expectations for growth without properly reflecting the risk that the company could lose advertising market share.

Google's price-to-earnings ratio, based on earnings for this year, is 1.5 times Kessler's projected average annual earnings growth of 45% over the next five years. Although that price to earnings-growth ratio is about in line with the technology companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, Kessler thinks there's more risk to Google's future earnings growth.

Laura Martin, an analyst at Soleil Securities Group in New York, says investors in Google expect unreasonable growth as its shares price in 19% average annual earnings increases (excluding taxes, depreciation and amortization and stock-options expenses) over the next 15 years.

The online ad industry is unlikely to grow more than 15% annually over the next 10 years, she says.

Still, Google has many fans.

"Google is cheap," argues Jason Schrotberger, an analyst with Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn, Pa. "They will have at least a 40% [EPS] growth rate the next couple of years. At 40 times to 50 times next year's earnings [per share], they are quite reasonable for the fastest-growing large-cap company."

As long as Google outperforms, questions about rising spending, tougher competition and slowing growth may not amount to much. But as big brands spend more on Internet advertising and open up new opportunities for Google's rivals, investors in Google may begin to search elsewhere for opportunities.

E-mail comments to editors@barrons.com
URL for this article:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB1132...

-- posted by SteveT

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/inve...

Top 37. Dec 21, 2005 8:19 PM

» smile_1 - fraud being recognized by some...

I have no interest in GOOG.

The shorts are desperate to find the chink(s) in the armor.

here it is... http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php...

___________

Kirk already found the chinks. Very astute.

"On business risk, there is no proof that what works now for Google revenue will work in a year or two if people decide that pay-per-click ads that Google serves don't give them enough sales to justify the price. This would mean the ads would have to convert to "percentage of sales" and those are not nearly as profitable.

Also, with 80% margins, if Google proves their business model works, then there will be heavy competition from folks like MSFT and Yahoo."

_________________

The pay for click fraud is coming under scrutiny.

The bottom line is, displaying ads for those with or without html filters and popup preventers, or for those who ignore the top and right side of a google search does not translate to sales... eventually the dumb ad money pouring into GOOG will catch on to this.

1 or 2 qtrs of sub 96% annual growth will be the beginning of the unwinding of this fraud.

-- posted by smile_1

http://pro.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGA...

Top 38. Dec 22, 2005 9:57 AM

» smile_1 - click fraud per Goog 10Q 9/30/05

Attached links go to edgar 10Q for GOOG period 9/30/05:

Online p.37

pdf file p. 41

http://pro.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingF...

______

excerpt:

If we fail to detect click fraud, we could lose the confidence of our advertisers, thereby causing our business to suffer.

We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads from a variety of potential sources. We have regularly refunded revenues that our advertisers have paid to us that were later attributed to click fraud, and we expect to do so in the future. Click fraud occurs when a person clicks on a Google AdWords ad displayed on a web site for a reason other than to view the underlying content. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks we may issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members. This would negatively affect our profitability, and these types of fraudulent activities could hurt our brand. If fraudulent clicks are not detected, the affected advertisers may experience a reduced return on their investment in our advertising programs because the fraudulent clicks will not lead to potential revenue for the advertisers. This could lead the advertisers to become dissatisfied with our advertising programs, which could lead to a loss of advertisers and revenues and potentially litigation.

_______________

another interesting issue per GOOG 10Q:

Index spammers could harm the integrity of our web search results, which could damage our reputation and cause our users to be dissatisfied with our products and services.

-- posted by smile_1

Top 39. Dec 22, 2005 1:03 PM

» SteveT - Re: click fraud per Goog 10Q 9/30/05

In response to click fraud per Goog 10Q 9/30/05 posted by smile_1:

Yeah what's to prevent someone long Google to sit and jump from one site to the other clicking on ads all day? BTW I have no position in GOOG other that what ever indexes it is in.

-- posted by SteveT

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mb?s=goog

Top 40. Dec 22, 2005 2:00 PM

» smile_1 - Re: click fraud per Goog 10Q 9/30/05

In response to Re: click fraud per Goog 10Q 9/30/05 posted by SteveT:

"Yeah what's to prevent someone long Google to sit and jump from one site to the other clicking on ads all day?"

nada, in fact if you look at GOOG discussion board at yahoo, you gotta think some of this is going on

I luv to see the shorts squirm, but hate to see this stuff added to indexes at the highs... are these guys nutz adding it to QQQQ.

Speculation is the S&P dummies are waiting till about GOOG 500 before they add it to their index. smile

Next few earnings reports will tell the story if it is still on a 95% rev growth rate yoy it could blow past 600 if not it is a 15-20 stock with lots of paid in cap from those who were sucked in.

-- posted by smile_1