Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) 01 (May 08 - Jul 17)

[kennynah]

iPhone is a iPod with a phone function....that's my definition of that device....also a polite way of describing it...

otherwise, it is a f**k up phone ....

[winston]

Not vested.

THE MARKET'S TAKE ON THE WORLD'S BEST BRAND by Brian Hunt

When publishing executives write their meaningless "best brands" issues, they agree on one thing: Google is the world's best brand.

Google is a fantastic business... and it's made extraordinary changes to the world. But it's an advertising business. And advertising businesses depend on the health of the economy. When the economy is humming along and profits are high, companies spend money on advertising. When business stinks, ad budgets evaporate.

As you can see from today's chart, the evaporation is here... and Google shares are reacting accordingly. After running hundreds of percent higher from 2005 to 2007, Google has sliced through all the "support" levels chart readers use to time their buys and sells.

In February, shares violated the $500 level. In March, it was $450. This week, it's $400. This month, we'll see the stock break through the all-important $350 level. Google may be the world's top brand, but the market doesn't care much for brands right now. It's a bear market in Google.

[winston]

THE FALL OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BRAND by Brian Hunt

The downtrends are getting hard to keep up with.

On Wednesday, we updated you on the bearish price action in copper. Copper is used in just about everything around us... so its collapsing share price is a sign for investors to hunker down.

Today, we update you on another bearish sign: the ongoing collapse of Google (GOOG), widely considered the world's best brand. As we predicted last week, the great GOOG has violated the $350 per share level last seen in 2006.

Google is a wonderful business. It's such a great brand that folks use the company name as a verb like "Xerox" or "FedEx." But it's a brand that lives and dies with advertising spending... which is the first expense to go when times get tough. GOOG is also popular with mutual-fund managers. When investors ask for their money back, it's the first stock to be sold to raise cash.

These two situations are putting a double whammy on GOOG stock... and $350 looks like a speed bump on the road to $300.

[millionairemind]

A fallen leader from 2003-2007 bull run

Google profits rise as slowdown pushes advertisers on to the web
Google, owner of the most popular Internet search engine, said third-quarter profit climbed more than 25pc as more customers used Web search ads to spur sales in a slowing economy.
Last Updated: 12:31AM BST 17 Oct 2008

The company saw net income rise to $1.35bn from $1.07bn, a year earlier. The figure beat the estimate of Wall Street analysts.

Advertisers are moving budgets away from TV and print media toward adverts that run alongside search listings, targeting online shoppers.

The Internet will account for 8.7pc of the $284bn in US ad spending this year, up from 7.2pc in 2007, according to Barclays Capital.

``This was exactly the kind of shot in the arm that investors need,'' said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst with Sanford C.Bernstein. ``People lost a lot of faith in the Internet, but this is exactly what the doctor ordered.''

Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales rose to $4.04bn, compared with the $4.05 billion average estimate. Total revenue climbed 31 percent to $5.54 billion.

Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, rose $36.98, or 10pc, to $390 in extended trading after closing at $353.02 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped 49pc this year.

[winston]

IF IT'S THIS ROUGH ON GOOGLE, IT'S KILLING RADIO by Brian Hunt

The "world's best brand" is becoming worth a little bit less each day.

As we covered a few months ago, most folks consider Google the world's best brand. It's revolutionized access to information and consumers. Heck... the company is so good, it became its own verb.

Good as it is, Google is an advertising business. And when companies conserve cash in an economic crisis, ad budgets are the first thing to get slashed. Google is also hugely popular with mutual-fund managers. When investors get disgusted with these managers, they ask for their money back... so popular stocks like Google are sold to raise cash. This is why Google just broke the $300 barrier as predicted... and why it's going even lower.

Looking at how the weak economy is hurting Google – the most effective, most targeted marketing avenue in the world – one has to wonder... is it also hurting less effective media like newspapers, cable TV, and radio?

Answer: Let's just say we know why one of the world's greatest investment analysts, Jim Chanos, is betting against most of America's radio and cable companies.

[kennynah]

Google to Reduce Contract Workers, Reports Say
11/25/2008 6:32 AM ET

(RTTNews) - Google, Inc. (GOOG: News ), owner of the popular search engine Google.com, is significantly reducing the number of its contract workers, reports stated on Monday. However, the Wall Street Journal in its report added that the company has presently no plans to lay off its employees.

Citing company spokeswomen Jane Penner, the reports noted that the Mountain View, California-based company declined to specify the number of contract workers to be laid off or the pace at which the company would terminate these temporary employees.

In her statement to the media yesterday, Penner was quoted as saying that the company has been mulling over the idea for quite some time to make a drastic cut its contract workers, even before the "acute phase of the economic crisis."

As of September end, Google was reported to have 20,123 full time employees and roughly about 10,000 temps.

GOOG closed Monday's regular trading on Nasdaq at $257.44, down $4.99, on a volume of 10.05 million shares.

[millionairemind]

Google to Stop Selling Print Advertising Next Month (Update2)
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By Brian Womack

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular Internet search engine, will close a business that sells advertising space in newspapers, saying the effort failed to deliver the impact it wanted.

The program, which had attracted more than 800 U.S. newspapers since it began in 2006, will stop selling ads on Feb. 28, Google said today on its blog. The ad sales will continue until March 31 for customers who already had campaigns booked.

“Some advertisers have seen good results,” Spencer Spinnell, director of Google Print Ads, wrote on the company blog. “But as we grow, it is important that we focus on products that can benefit the most people and solve the most important problems.”

Google, which gets most of its sales from Internet-search advertising, has sought to expand beyond the Web by selling print and television ads. The recession has curbed overall marketing spending, forcing the company to slow expansion plans. Google announced last week that it’s cutting about 100 jobs from its recruiting department as it scales back hiring.

[millionairemind]

Google Profit Tops Estimates as Web-Ad Sales Rise (Update2)
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By Brian Womack

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the most-used Internet search engine, reported fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as more companies used the Web to promote products over the holidays.

Net income was $382.4 million, or $1.21 a share, the company said today. Leaving out some costs, profit was $5.10 a share, beating the $4.96 estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Google wrote down investments in Time Warner Inc.’s AOL and Clearwire Corp. by $1.09 billion, causing profit to drop 68 percent from a year earlier.

Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, grappling with Google’s first recession as a public company, has trimmed costs and jettisoned underperforming products to maintain profit growth. Spending in the U.S. on ads linked to Web-search results increased 21 percent in 2008, compared with a growth rate of 30 percent in 2007, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.

“This was a pretty decent quarter considering all the fear and loathing out there in the market,” said Christa Quarles, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco. “It seems that retailers had pulled out all the stops to drive revenue.”

Google added $6.29, or 2.1 percent, to $312.79 in extended trading after closing at $306.50 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares lost about 56 percent last year.

Option Exchange

Google also said it will offer employees a stock-option exchange, an effort to retain talent. The program would let employees trade their options for new options with an exercise price equal to the closing price on March 2.

Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales climbed to $4.22 billion, beating the $4.13 billion predicted by analysts. Total revenue increased 18 percent to $5.70 billion.

“Business is quite healthy, especially given the tough economic environment,” Schmidt said on a conference call with analysts. “We’re in this for the long haul.”

Revenue from Google’s own sites increased 22 percent to $3.81 billion, accounting for about two-thirds of overall sales, the company said. Ad sales from Google’s partner sites rose 3.5 percent to $1.69 billion.

“Even with the worst economic guidance loaded in our models, Google still performs well,” said Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, said in an interview from New York. “It’s a strong indicator that Google can continue to perform well throughout 2009.”

AOL Partnership

Last year, Google had a profit of $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share. The company agreed in 2005 to pay $1 billion for 5 percent of AOL as part of a partnership to share online advertising and search software. Google announced the investment in Clearwire, which is building a high-speed wireless network, in May.

International sales accounted for half of revenue, compared with 48 percent a year earlier, Google said. A weakening dollar hurt revenue growth -- had exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, sales would have been $334 million higher, Google said.

Under Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, Google has reduced the use of contract workers and said last week that it would cut 100 people from its recruiting department. The company also gave out mobile phones this year for a holiday bonus instead of $1,000 in cash.

Capital Spending

The company slowed capital expenditures to $367.8 million in the fourth quarter from $678.2 million a year earlier. The company added about 100 employees in the quarter.

Google has cut some products that didn’t meet its expectations, including the newspaper ad program started in 2006. The company is pulling the plug on Google Notebook, which lets users post content from various sources to one site.

“Google has historically been spending an ungodly amount of money trying to pursue a large series of initiatives, and that’s fine when everything’s going great,” said Youssef Squali, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York. “In this kind of macro environment you need to turn your penny twice before you spend it.”

[blid2def]

How Google Decides to Pull the Plug

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/business/15ping.html

[iam802]

Google to cut scores of jobs

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stori ... ily76.html

Google Inc. is planning to cut scores of jobs after saying it hired too many people into overlapping jobs.

“When companies grow that quickly it’s almost impossible to get everything right—and we certainly didn’t,” said Omid Kordestani, Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) senior VP for global sales and business development in a blog posting on Thursday. “In some areas we’ve created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process.”

The online search engine company also said it overinvested in some areas “in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time.”

The posting said “just under 200” sales and marketing positions would be eliminated globally.

Workers will be given a chance to find other jobs within the company, Google said.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., Google has just over 20,000 employees.

Seems like ads revenue isn't going to pick up in the short run.

Maybe that's why the Sales Chief rejected his bonus.