Google Going Down

Is it worrying time for Google after seeing its shares drop below 500 bucks for the first time? No, Google is still Google and will be, unless there's a cataclysm that wipes out all mankind. There's a reason for the decline in value, of course, but it's only circumstantial.

Following last week's fourth quarter earnings report and the 44.6 million dollars bid Microsoft threw on Yahoo!'s table, Google share holders got scared and started selling while the value was intact. The price range over the last year for the Mountain View-based company's shares varied from $437 to $747.24, so it was natural for those having weaker nerves to freak when seeing numbers in the proximity of the minimum value.

The decrease following the Microsoft bid alone was of 21.3 bucks, or 4.1 percent. As small a number as it may look like, that was added to the other 10 percent the shares dropped since January 18th. But you know what they say, one man's perdition is another's wealth, or that's how it was in medieval times. Applying that to the current situation, my advice is to buy and buy big. You never know when you'll get another chance such as this one, with prices so low. After all, it is Google we're talking of, there's nothing that could go wrong unless a faux pas of incomparable proportion occurs, to turn users away from the company.

I expect shares to rise pretty quickly following the phone call between Google's CEO, Eric Schneider, and his Yahoo! counterpart, Jerry Yang, offering his company's help, while Sunnyvale sources mentioned that a possible joint business venture might not look so bad for the Internet pioneer company. Not examining the alternative, anyway.

Microsoft expected a quick answer and said that the offer was very generous. That alone would have convinced me not to sell and I'm betting it infuriated Yang as well.