Filed under: Major movement, Forecasts, Internet, Rants and raves, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Next big thing, Nokia Corp. (NOK), News Corp’B’ (NWS), Serious Money, Headline news, Garmin Ltd (GRMN)

Today Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is the top Internet search and advertising property there is — No Question! Yesterday it was something else. Why do investors believe that everything now ends with Google? Have we already reached the end of the internet revolution. Maybe we just think Google has locked up the next stages as well.

Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) started with two graduate students from Standford University and was all the rage. Google started with two graduate students from Stanford University and now it is all the rage. Do we think Stanford is running out of bright graduate students all of a sudden? I would call them and make an inquiry but surely they would not take me seriously.

Has Google perfected Internet advertising? I don’t think so, do you? Will Yahoo, Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), News Corp (NYSE: NWS) and all the international players concede an inch of ground more than temporarily?

I am not saying that Google won’t eventually conquer the Internet world, (because I do not know) but this feat is by no means as certain as the market currently seems to believe: driving the price of GOOG up $95 per share as I write this story, on no news, in about eight weeks.

Yesterday Nokia Corp (NYSE: NOK) announced a deal that may have serious repercussions for two other very high flyers, Garmin LTD (NASDAQ: GRMN) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), as reported here by my colleague Peter Cohan. There will be competition even if it has not risen to the top yet and we do not have clear visibility how it will come about.

Last year I railed against all the ridiculous Google share price predictions and made my own valuation, which turned out to be less than 10% off. Now I think it has gotten out of hand again.

Google may have a great company, service, products, market share, management and many of the other characteristics that strong companies and stocks display, but I am not sure it has a very wide moat. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) has been buying Burlington Northern Inc. (NYSE: BNI) and that has the strongest of moats. Google has no comparison by any stretch of the imagination. Google has greater growth opportunity for sure…and it also has the possibility to come crashing down when you least expect it!

To find potential opportunities and verify my track record read Chasing Value or Serious Money.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He is on the advisory board of internet start-up CircleBuilder.com.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Goog news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.