The Financial Standings of Google: Guest Post by Lauren Poliseno


Google is a multinational corporation, that to some people has become a lifestyle, rather than what it appears to be: an internet search. Instead of hearing ‘search that’ we now hear ‘Google it’. With ownership of YouTube and Blogger and its multiple applications like Google+, Google Maps, and Gmail people put their lives in the virtual hands of Google.

Google’s initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19th, 2004 starting at $85 per share.  The company recently announced that they had earned $50 billion in revenue in 2012. Currently Google (GOOG) is up 1.48% in NASDAQ and hit a new high Friday Feb. 8 ending the week at $785.30. Google’s top competitors within the market are Facebook (FB), Baidu Inc. (BIDU), Thomson Reuters Corp. (TRI), and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO).

The forecast for Google is shown below. It gives a graph of the past 12 months and the expectations for the next 12. By showing the trajectory of the graph is gives options for a high, median, and low outcome.


According to Mashable blogger, Chris Taylor, Google chairman Eric Schmidt plans to sell $2.5 billion of his Google shares in order to lower his stakes in the search company by 42 percent in the next year. He recently filed the necessary paperwork with the SEC in order to sell his percentage of stocks. Schmidt represents 3% of the company having netted 7.3 million Google shares over his ten years involved with the company. Selling the shares will put Schmidt at roughly $2.51 billion. Thus, securing his well deserved spot as the 49th richest billionaire in the US as he is listed in the latest Forbes magazine rankings.

It will be interesting to see how Google shares will change over the next few months with this change. If the forecast goes as planned Google will continue to strive in the stock market. Google is definitely a company to keep an eye on over the next few months.

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