LOL. I ask you this - what SHOULD stock price be based on? Market share, quarterly profits, and price to earnings ratio would be my answer. Is Google still 1st rate on those terms? Yup. So what caused its stock price to drop?
Do you remember what happened when Google went public? They did the whole Dutch auction thing? Do you remember who they pissed off when that happened? By doing it that way, and not going the usual IPO route, they cut out all of the usual crowd that makes money on IPOs: investment banks and the "in" crowd. Instead, they allowed the public to directly buy shares. That pissed off a LOT of people in the investment community. For years they had been making armloads of money off tech IPOs and here comes a company that has the audacity to treat them just like average schmos. Do you remember all the media spin on the Google IPO? Every single talking head was on TV talking about how it wasn't worth $150 and it would tank on its first day and no one should buy it. That was the establishment with their talking papers trying to get back at Google for cutting them out. Of course they were all wrong, the stock WAS worth $150, and is worth a lot more based on Google's earning reports. So what has happened lately? Google is getting the crap blasted out of it for censoring its search results in China. I personally don't like their decision. And there is another story where Google refused to turn over search data to the DOJ. What didn't get reported as widely? MSN and Yahoo forked over that same data months ago without telling anyone. Personally, I agree with Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060129200619260 Quote: "Here's what I have observed: When you compete with Microsoft, your reputation will be sullied in the press. Having experienced something similar, I can smell it a mile away when it happens to others. And I'm starting to get that whiff... " This is no more than the investment community that got burned by Google taking revenge using the FUD being spread by Google's enemies (DOJ, China, M$) as an excuse. Call it white collar blackmail or whatever. -- Brian