Echo To All

Why I'm Shorting Google

i see where ur getting at via the technicals. but unless this is a trade that will last a few days, do not take it.

1st... ur thesis is wrong. we do not know the breakup in ad dollars from financials and autos that is specific to goog. (On the web in general yes, but the general web does not correlate with ads that we can understand the ROI)

2nd... goog w/a 20.00 est 2009 eps (which represents zero growth from last year) would give the fastest growing company (whose innovation has not let up) a forward PE of 16. (16 for a stock that usually trades in the 20-30 range)

3rd... they can manipulate eps too well. they aready started putting ads on finance and other places I have not seen before. On top of this, their cost cutting does produce bottom line results. (they proved this last quarter.)

4th... if we are going to have a serious bear market rally (one that allows the SP500 to touch the 200sma), GOOG will retest 380 or even its weekly 50SMA.

simply put, this stock should not be in the 200s due to valuations, but it should not be in the well over 400 given the environment u argue.

Apple and Google: Changing My Mind

I don't know if this is the best strategy, but it has worked for me very well...

i'm a chart guy, so i think i have a good understanding when an equity is really oversold. And when the oversold condition is near a price I am willing to pay for the stock, I sell the puts at a strike I am willing to buy the stock.

For instance with at the moment with GOOG, it is not oversold, and it is hitting the 85sma resistance.

once oversold sell ur puts (or its at a level ur willing to pay for the stock). I stick with short-term options when selling (to benefit from time decay), so I would use the March puts. Assume ur buy price of GOOG is 290. Sell the 280 March Puts. If a hedge is desired, sell the 330 March calls (or a strike your comfortable with, that will not exercise and can provide a hedge)

being a chartist I would (and have) purchased puts (330 march) today, as it reached the 85sma resistance, and when (if) it approaches the target price of 290 with an oversold condition, sell the 280 puts. (possibly keeping the purchased puts as a hedge to the sold puts)

(I primarily use my charts to dictate when to enter/exit, and utilize options based on my understanding of the charts. so i may not be giving the best option strategy via strike prices versus stock price.)

hope this helps

Apple Investors: Fasten Your Seatbelts, Put On Helmets

why can't u just say ur shorting AAPL because it is a proxy to the markets?

instead u try to justify ur short by wordy arguments and connecting unconnectable dots... and the icing on the crappy cake is this statement... "traders know they can bring AAPL down to do their bidding, and so they will."

Google’s Earnings Expose Wall Street’s Limitations

IMO, the general consensus via analyst were assessing google with what they know... ie... economic down turn means less money for Ads (as u point out). The logical conclusion is that GOOG will feel the pinch. This was not because wall street (or rather the 'analyst general consensus'... not really wall street) is limited, but because they are not familiar with a company that can leverage their properties, and the concept of a consumer clicking on an Ad they want to see during such an economic down turn. (Obviously this concept is more resilient even during hard economic times.)

remember, google's model has never been seen during an economic down turn.

Also, regarding the comscore data... here is a good article showing how its not a good predictor.

www.techcrunch.com/200.../

Is Google the Next AOL?

so annoyed by this statement i had to comment... "Google needs to focus on earnings and not on senseless innovation that might be cool, but doesn’t fit into their business model."

senseless innovation can mean a lot of things, but they are not innovating senselessly, they are encouraging innovation. Encouragement of innovation is a foundation to any great tech company, and it should be looked for when investing in such companies as it is a clear example of their competative advantage.

Google is where it is because it had/has the courage to encourage innovation. And out innovating it competitors (if u think it is senseless short the hell out of it.)

ps... aol is a great properly, it was just managed like crap for too long but that is changing.

Google’s Video PlusBox: Most Disruptive Feature Ever?

but you can not neglect the fact that media companies are partnering with youtube. so if the search brings up the media company's video content via youtube, the media companies will benefit too.

for the very reason you mentioned above I have been confused (for months) as to why the media companies are not willing to partner with youtube. it is in their best interest to maximize profits or potentially get marginalized on the web. especially news content. a lot of it is recycled around many different organizations, the news media with partnerships amongst the video sites will benefit the most from this.

(I do not know who the search queries works, but it would be smart of google if they prioritized the results from legitimate partners first, then queried the random uploads that may provide the video a searcher was looking for.)

Why Did Google Invest in Sergey Brin's Wife's Biotech Start-Up?

why the investment was made... as per the companies own over view:

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

www.google.com/corpora.../

the world's information can mean a lot of things... and there is a hell of a lot of information in our genome.

(I'm not trying to be a wise a**, but it is consistent with what they do. Just on a different level.)

Google also focuses on Health.

I do not think this is as big of a deal as you would like it to be.

anyway, just my 2 cents... which is worth 2 cents :)

Google: Caveat Emptor

"In our digital age, competitors catch up more quickly and tech titans reign at #1 become shorter and shorter. This is rather ironic because it is the same digital technologies that enable their meteoric accent to begin with. IBM reigned for almost 30 years, Microsoft for about 12 and Google has been there for about five now."

you paint a nice negative picture, and can not really argue with the top part of your article. (Time will tell.) But to suggest Google's reign is over is simply wrong.

The company continues beat its competitors, has an innovative culture and it understand how to monetize the web better than anyone else. We are still in the internet age, and as application are used more and more online Google will be even more appart of it. To suggest it has peaked is wrong.

A key thing to remember is that IBM ruled for soooo long (at least by you definition of reigning) because it did not stop innovating for that time period. It solved a lot of the world's problems and made the world more efficient. So long as Google can maintain its innovative culture and understanding of the web, we will see some great things come out of it.

as far as short-term catalysts, i am curious to see what the video ads and the monetization of YouTube will do to those forecasted numbers.

Interactive Q&A: Katie Jacobs Stanton, Product Manager of Google Finance

Hi Katie, thanks for taking the time for the q&a.

Curious on how the site decides what blog to post on the "Blog Post" section. Is it randomly generated or is there a system? (the same question can be applied to the videos)

Google: Extraordinary Growth, But The Stock's Still Expensive

"...at this point requires some serious faith."

How many time is can commentators say... "at this point"... assuming growth is going to just slow down because of some reason or another, yet Google keeps proving all the talking heads wrong.

Google keeps proving time and time again that it deserves a premium. Yahoo gets a killer premium to its single digit growth, anyway you look at it. Yet Google keeps proving itself and deserves no such premium. At the very least it deserves a premium higher than Yahoo. At the very least. (or Yahoo needs to come down a lot.)

Google in Full Glory - Like the Roman Empire Before Its Fall?

I take back the unique visitor comment... it is about 16% from Feb ComScore.

February 2007 Total Worldwide - Home and Work Locations (2) Source: comScore World Metrix Web Properties Total Unique Visitors (000) Worldwide Total (Age 15+) 739,835 Microsoft Sites 507,317 Google Sites 503,033 Yahoo! Sites 458,985 Time Warner Network 256,242 eBay 248,558 Wikipedia Sites 192,176 Amazon Sites 143,084 Fox Interactive Media 140,500 CNET Networks 116,394 Apple Computer, Inc. 111,877 Ask Network 108,663 Adobe Sites 98,748 Lycos, Inc. 86,581 Viacom Digital 76,625 New York Times Digital 70,984

I still would look to overall market share rather than partnership deals. While the partnership may materialize into more market share, time will tell.

Google in Full Glory - Like the Roman Empire Before Its Fall?

Alexa is not good at measuring traffic and what your suggesting. Look at the comscores and others, which indicate Google has increased market share... yet again.

"[Google] is still a one trick pony" - what pony is a very very nice one.

Sam Zell's stand to Google is a joke. Viacom picking Yahoo... yawn. (I'm very interested to see how many unique visitors Viacom's properties have... something tells me it is a low single digit fraction of yahoo's. And I am sure Yahoo payed up well for that deal.)