Is GOOG as strong as everyone thinks?

[freki]

Me and a friend are in a discussion about GOOG. He bought some stock (dunno exactly how much) at about $685/share (if memory serves right). He is confident that even with all the turbulence in the GOOG stock that it will top $1000 this year. Does anyone else think Google will be able to top $1k and hold above that with any length? I personally don't see it...but I just want to hear other opinions on the matter.

[Fredledingue]

IMO he bought GOOG way too high, at a price where several
years of growths were priced in already.
Now at $475 GOOG is not overvalued anymore, albeit still expensive.
I don't think GOOG is interrsting above $400, say, for a hoping a 20% returns over a few months.
It's overvalued because everybody knows this brand more poeple bought their shares than a machine tool manfacturer for example!
Technicaly speeking GOOG is overvalued at $475 and should be fairly priced around $200, but Google is Google.
Your friend didn't loose his money: GOOG is an excellent company with growing revenues and profit, tons of cash and NO debt.
That means that even if he looses 25~30% now, in a few months or a few years he will recover his loss unless he sells because the company has some solid bases.
Just let's be realistic: GOOG cannot grow the way it grew in the last years. 10~15% growth is, IMO a more cautious forecast.

Note: I'm going to merge this thread to the Stock Arena forum where a thread on GOOG aready exist.

[roz_e123]

wow. i agree, that the purchase price of that stock was way too high. he perhaps should have watched the market a bit longer or asked around to gain more tips on stocks that might be more profitable.

i agree with the response that Fredledingue posted. he's not going to lose money, but will perhaps even out. once he's evens out, might want to sell and invest in growing companies.

now...i'm not saying that this company is going anywhere, but one that i've heard a few good things about lately is exbx.pk. it's a small stock but i hear that it's going to take off in the future. with that note it's a long term, not short term investment.

[freki]

Thanks for your input guys. My opinion is that the $1k target price is mostly optimistic hype, but I honestly don't follow it that closely. Goog is a strong company, but getting a little big for its pants IMO. I think there's too much going on with their AdSense program that's pissing off a lot of people...although they're improving quality I think its going to cut into their profits.

[Fredledingue]

GOOG is a search engine website with a capitalisation of 160 Bln.
It's the best search engine ever but it can't grow out of that or they are going to be something else.
The danger with GOOG is that they have too much cash and don't know what to do with it.
The danger is that they start making bad investments in sectors which are not thier speciality.

[Stocktrading101]

AdSense program that's pissing off a lot of people...although they're improving quality I think its going to cut into their profits.

It has definitely pissed me off... If only there was a better alternative. Yahoo and MSN need to get their shit together.