Google Shares Shoot Past - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog
Google Shares Shoot Past $600By Miguel Helft
Tags: Google
Google Stocks(MarketWatch)Google stock’s upward march continued today as its shares crossed the symbolic $600 mark for the first time. The stock rose $15.57, or 2.6 percent, to close at $609.62, and it is now more than $100 higher than it was three months ago after Google reported second-quarter earnings.
Google hasn’t disclosed any new financial information since then, and the company doesn’t provide guidance to financial analysts. So why is the stock up?
There are plenty of reasons, if you talk to Wall Street analysts, including the overall rise in domestic stocks in the past five weeks. But the reasons differ depending on whom you talk to.
Youssef Squali at Jefferies & Co. says two key factors are driving the stock up. One is the fact that Google is outpacing rivals in the search market by an ever-widening margin. The other is that Google has made changes to its search advertising algorithms which are causing prices for some ads to go up, Mr. Squali said. ...
Astounding. Anyone still believe securities markets are rational?
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Comments (3)
There is a desire in humankind to find meaning in places where there may be no meaning. The stock market is one of those places.
The reason that the price of a company rises in a given trading session is because there are more buyers than sellers, finis. That is the only rationale that holds up to any kind of scrutiny.
5.4 million Google shares traded today. I don't know what the average block size was; say it was fifty shares... not unlikely. That means, on average, slightly less than 108000 sellers met with slightly more than 108000 buyers. The price went up. Can anyone know what was going through the mind of each buyer and each seller? Can 216000 people all be of the same mind? Don't forget that both buyer and seller each believe they are getting the better part of the bargain. The seller sells because he believes the price has peaked and the buyer buys because he believes the price will go higher. Buyer and seller motives are fundamentally opposed. One party to the deal must be wrong.
I pay my stock broker to interperate the meaning of events so I have a better shot at being on the right side at the right time. I hope he is not just throwing darts at the WSJ and hoping for the best. That's not his job. His job is to find the true meaning of events and advise me of the consequences. The cycle of Google's meaning in our lives will not be eternal unless those that plan its moves get the meaning of people's habits right and can capitalize on their correctness. Which up to now they have done. But, as evidenced by Google's secretive nature, these interpretations of meaning are not rocket science. Therefore Google does all it can to hide, bully, position itself and influence lawmakers so the riches keep coming. If Google gets the meaning wrong, as with anyone, it's riches and power could evaporate as quickly as it was accumulated. There is a reason more people are buying rather than selling and making the stock price rise. That reason may be false but sometimes we act like Lemmings and follow others over the cliff! And some times our reasons mean we will take the loss regardless of the number of buyers or sellers or the price. Saying that all that is going into a stock price is the number of buyers vs. sellers is a little like saying the winner of a football game is the one with the most points when the clock runs out. True. But I need to know why before I make my next bet. For the time being though, where Google leads the Lemmings will follow. We don't need to know what's in everyone's mind, just the leaders'.
I am a stockbroker.
Remember that stockbrokers are sales people first and foremost. Their job is to bring your assets to their firm and keep them there. Take what they say with a grain of salt.