Google on the way to the $200 boundary?

Google struggles to rebound to $300

(Source: By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:30 p.m. EDT March 9, 2009)
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Google Inc. remained below the $300 mark Monday, as investors soured on the search giant in the wake of sobering comments made by its chief executive last week.
(GOOG 290.89, -17.68, -5.7%) stock dipped below $300 on Friday for the first time since late January, and closed Monday's session more than 5% lower at $290.89.
The shares' slide comes roughly a week after Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told an audience at a technology conference that he doesn't see the economy rebounding until 2010. In addition, analysts have issued increasingly negative outlooks for the online-advertising industry. See related story on Schmidt's comments..
Google has also taken the unusual step of allowing employees to exchange their stock options, a move that some analysts have criticized as short-changing outside investors.
On Friday, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing that it's allowing employees -- who may have seen their options become virtually worthless thanks to the falling stock price -- to acquire new options priced at $308.57.
Google has said it needs to implement the stock-option exchange to help retain top talent. However, the net effect is to potentially enable company insiders to profit from gains in Google's stock price in advance of investors who bought shares in the recent past.
The move also comes as Google, along with its peers, is facing increasingly difficult online-advertising conditions.
Last week, Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Christa Quarles lowered her estimates for Google's current fiscal year as well as for 2010, citing "sustained and perhaps increasing weakness in the online-advertising market."

Advertisers slashing budgets due to economic downturns.Bad news for mobile sites,

Mobile advertising answers questions about its future
November 7, 2008 — 11:01am ET | By Jason Ankeny
One third of marketers plan to slash their advertising budgets this year to account for the economic downturn, according to a recent survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, and three prominent industry forecasters--Barclays Capital, Myers Publishing and Wachovia--predict ad spending for traditional media outlets like TV, radio, magazines and newspapers will decline even further in 2009. While none of that bodes well for the immediate future of mobile advertising, there seems to be little doubt the mobile platform offers an increasingly viable promotional channel: Consumer research issued by mobile community provider Limbo and market analysis firm GfK Technology states mobile ad awareness increased 33 percent during the first nine months of 2008, compared to just six percent growth in overall mobile phone usage.


Google Finally Gets A "SELL" Rating!
Finally, we've reached the first real sign of a bottom in Google's stock price: A sell-side analyst now rates the stock "SELL." Most of the Street is still bullish, so we probably need a few more frustrated sorry-I-blew-you-up downgrades before we reach the bottom, but this is definitely encouraging. Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko, via Barrons: "Click volume and search ad pricing are under pressure, and so we are initiating coverage with a Sell rating. Google is likely to be among the first to rally as the economy stabilizes; however, near term, we see downside to consensus estimates and believe that investors will get a better entry point in the next six months."