Filed under: Major movement, Google (GOOG)

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has done it again. After passing the $600 mark earlier this year, the company’s stock price jetted above the $700 level yesterday, closing at $707.00 on the spookiest day of the year, literally and figuratively. While I am a huge Google fan, are these levels justified?

From a fundamentalist perspective, the share price is way out of whack. Some may even look back to the days of the dot-com madness of 2001 in looking over Google’s current valuation.

Although, in just over a year, the company has added in more partnerships and has extended its hands deeply into so many pockets that its overall reliance on text-based advertising may wane slowly in 2008. This is by design: Google needs an Act II and the planning for that is well underway. Still, it’s not there yet, although its share price reflects either some insane hype or unknown potential that traders are finding in that magic 8-ball.

Google’s $200+ billion market cap has been raised 34% just since September, during which it reported another stellar quarter of results, which I liveblogged here. If you held Google shares at the start of 2007, have you cashed in with the 54% return you’ve seen this year?

If so, why? If not, why?

If Google turns into the advertising leader in the hot-to-trot social networking scene, it could be poised to hit even higher levels.

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Filed under: Market matters, Personal finance, Housing

Records were set again as RealtyTrac released its foreclosure statistics for the third Quarter — 446,726 homes nationwide were targeted with some type of foreclosure activity between the months of July and September. That’s double the number facing foreclosure for the same period one year ago and 33.9% higher than the second quarter.

Nevada tops the list with one in every 61 households facing foreclosure. California’s foreclosure filings hit one in every 88 households and Floridians face foreclosure in one of every 95 households. Other states hardest hit include Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Texas. Nationwide, one in every 196 households are facing foreclosure according to RealtyTrac. Indications are that many of these foreclosures are being driven by real estate investors rather than homes occupied by home owners.

Continue reading Foreclosures hit new records in third quarter

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Wal-Mart (WMT), McDonald’s (MCD), International Business Machines (IBM)

Who hasn’t had a U-Haul experience? Several times, I rented a U-Haul while in college - and many times since. It’s really a brilliant idea and also a great story of American entrepreneurialism on par with McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD)’s Ray Kroc or Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT)’s Sam Walton. And now there is a new book on the U-Haul story, called A Noble Function: How U-Haul Moved America.

The author, Luke Krueger, covers the first 20 years of the company’s history. To bring the story to life, he interviewed dozens of the key players who built the company. “They welcomed me into their homes, fed me, and most importantly, shared their memories with me,” writes Krueger.

Right Idea, Right Time

Sam Shoen, along with his wife Anna Mary, launched U-Haul in 1945. They were struggling financially, having to live with Anna Mary’s parents. But their idea was quite innovative: one-way trailer rentals.

Moreover, the timing was spot-on. With the end of the Great Depression and World War II, America was anxious for economic growth. It would mean that millions would move across the nation, setting up their homes and businesses. For example, there were 69,500 new car sales in 1945. Five years later, there were 40.3 million registered cars on the highways.

Early on, Sam had ambitions of going national. To do this, he focused on standardizing the production of trailers. He also had to educate his customers. Interestingly enough, Sam used cartoons to explain his new approach.

Even as U-Haul grew, the company was mostly short on cash. It meant that Sam had to mortgage his property as well as get creative. For example, one smart strategy was to partner with operators of service stations, who would then become dealers. It wound up being a key source of growth and cash flows.

While this worked well, the system meant even more problems. How do you keep track of the trailers? How much money should be paid to each dealer?

To handle such things, Sam built a reporting system, even making it part of a separate company. He also purchased several International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) mainframes to keep track of the volume of business.

Regardless of the challenges, and there were many, U-Haul always seemed to find solutions. No doubt, a big factor was Sam’s knack for hiring entry-level people. From there, he allowed for a decentralized organization — and somehow the organization would get things done.

In fact, in 1957, Sam’s wife died (at age 35) and no doubt, he was distraught and withdrew from the business. Despite this, U-Haul continued to grow and innovate.

But it was a couple years later when U-Haul’s team made a key move: introducing trucks. According to Krueger, this “stuck a dagger in the heart of the competition.”

What Comes Next?

Unfortunately, the book does not provide any recap on what happened to U-Haul since the mid 1960s.

So, I had to do my own detective work. For example, U-Haul is a part of AMERCO (Nasdaq: UHAL), which also operates AMERCO Real Estate Company, Republic Western Insurance Company and Oxford Life Insurance Company. The company has a network of more than 15,950 locations and a fleet of more than 100,000 trucks and 78,500 trailers.

And what happened to Sam? Again, there is no follow-up from Krueger. So I did a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search and found a New York Times obituary.

Some additional details: Sam, who married five times, had 13 kids and even sued some of them for control of the company during the 1980s. Then in 1999, Sam committed suicide. He was 83.

So even though Krueger has put together good book, I think he should have had a recap chapter - so as to put things into context. Then again, if you want a good look at an American icon and learn some important business lessons, this book is still worth reading.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Products and services, Internet, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Marketing and advertising

Answers Corporation (NASDAQ: ANSW), parent of Answers.com, a Web 2.0 amalgamation of useful research info, announced yesterday that its newish service, WikiAnswers surpassed one million questions posted on its site. I don’t know whether one million is a lot, but it’s right up there with what my five children ask me in just a single day.

The service allows content to be generated completely by users. The Holy Grail of Web 2.0, User Generated Content (UGC), this type of service allows users to both post questions and answer others’ questions in a wide variety of domains. Growth has been impressive. According to the company, for the first nine months of this year, WikiAnswers’ unique monthly visitor count in the U.S. has grown 317%, to more than four million. This ranks WikiAnswers as the second-fastest growing domain of the top 1,500. Not too shabby.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) pulled a competing service last year after boring results. Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), on the other hand, with Yahoo! Answers, has proven the model that users enjoy using this type of service. Yahoo has seen tremendous growth and according to TechCrunch, “one of Yahoo’s most successful product launches in recent years has been Yahoo! Answers, which is showing more than 50% year-over-year growth in pageviews, according to comScore. Yahoo! keeps pushing the crowd-sourcing property, which lets 95 million registered members around the world answer each others’ questions.”This is a great service: Both in terms of driving traffic and just flat out providing useful information written by people with knowledge to share. It should also drive search queries at Answers.com, feeding Answers’ revenue model. I’ve been critical of Answers.com in the past: It overly relies upon a quasi-agreement for traffic from Google, are engaged in buying Dictionary.com for an obscene amount of money, and are hampered by lack of execution on the ad sales front.

That said, it is putting together some interesting properties and showing some decent growth from the usage/traffic side. I wish Answers.com could answer for me what the right valuation on this puppy should be.

For now, I’m on the sidelines.

Author holds a position in GOOG but in no other stocks mentioned above as of 11/1/07.

Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC., the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT)

Over the past couple weeks, there have been some mega private fundings of dot-coms. Of course, there was Microsoft’s $240 million investment in Facebook. And now, we have another blockbuster: Francisco Partners has invested $100 million in Specific Media, a top online advertising network that reaches over 130 million unique users.

With Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) buyout of DoubleClick and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) deal for aQuantive, it’s hard not to be excited about Specific Media’s space. “I think there will be more consolidation,” said Tim Vanderhook, CEO and co-founder of Specific Media, in a BloggingStocks.com interview. “So with the $100 million, we can also be a consolidator.”

For example, he sees lots of opportunities in Europe. Specific Media is also looking at advertising types beyond banners. So does this mean moving into video? Perhaps. Although, Vanderhook is somewhat tempered. “It’s still a small market and there are issues to work out,” he said. “I think there could be a shake-out in the sector. So, we could see a lot of assets for sale.”

Visit DealProfiles.com to check out more information on recent VC deals.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Major movement, Google (GOOG)

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has done it again. After passing the $600 mark earlier this year, the company’s stock price jetted above the $700 level yesterday, closing at $707.00 on the spookiest day of the year, literally and figuratively. While I am a huge Google fan, are these levels justified?

From a fundamentalist perspective, the share price is way out of whack. Some may even look back to the days of the dot-com madness of 2001 in looking over Google’s current valuation.

Although, in just over a year, the company has added in more partnerships and has extended its hands deeply into so many pockets that its overall reliance on text-based advertising may wane slowly in 2008. This is by design: Google needs an Act II and the planning for that is well underway. Still, it’s not there yet, although its share price reflects either some insane hype or unknown potential that traders are finding in that magic 8-ball.

Google’s $200+ billion market cap has been raised 34% just since September, during which it reported another stellar quarter of results, which I liveblogged here. If you held Google shares at the start of 2007, have you cashed in with the 54% return you’ve seen this year?

If so, why? If not, why?

If Google turns into the advertising leader in the hot-to-trot social networking scene, it could be poised to hit even higher levels.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco Systems (CSCO), General Electric (GE), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Citigroup Inc. (C), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Advanced Micro Dev (AMD), Money and Finance Today, Merrill Lynch (MER), Costco Wholesale (COST), CVS Corp (CVS), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Starbucks (SBUX), PepsiCo (PEP), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Citigroup Inc. (C), Economic data

Before the bell: Rallying oil chokes Fed rate cut joy

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) will launch today its “frappucino” bottled drinks in China with partner PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP). With this, the company is reaching beyond its iconic stores in marketing the brand in Chinese stores, shops - even Shanghai’s subways. SBUX shares are gaining somewhat this morning, not bad considering the negative direction of the market.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced a multiyear, $16 billion investment in China to expand manufacturing, venture capital and education efforts. The ventures include a partnership with Alibaba Group. The company says its total commitments in China to date are $8.5 billion.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) stock is down over 4.6% in premarket trading (8:10) after CIBC World Markets downgraded Citigroup to Sector Underperformer from Sector Performer, citing capital concerns which could cause a dividend cut.

Car and truck sales will be reported today. According to a Goldman analyst, General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) sales probably rose about 2%. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sales probably declined 17%.

According to iPhone Atlas, there were a 144,000 installation of AppSnapp in 3 days. AppSnap is a third party app/jailbreak tool for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. Others are wondering whether the new release of Mac’s operating system, Leopard, could be still be in beta as users encounter many problems.

Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock price passed through $700 for the first time to close at $707 yesterday after announcing plans for new products and services in new markets.

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Filed under: Newsletters, Commodities, Stocks to Buy

The SPDR S&P Metals & Mining (AMEX: XME), a play on hard assets, has delivered impressive gains of 52% over the past 12 months,” notes Paul Tracy who has added the ETF to the Sector Trading Portfolio of The ETF Authority.

The advisor explains, “While investors shouldn’t grow accustomed to red-hot annual gains of 50%, this ETF is an ideal way to gain exposure to this sector.” Here is his review.

“XME has been in the right place at the right time. The ETF mirrors the S&P Metals & Mining and invests in hard assets like precious metals (gold), industrial metals (copper, aluminum), steel, and coal.

“According to studies conducted by research firm Ibbotson, this group has a very low correlation with other traditional asset classes, and a modest stake can boost long-term returns with negligible additional risk — and that has certainly been the case lately.

Continue reading S&P Metals & Mining (XME): ‘Ideal play on hard assets’

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Filed under: Newspapers, Magazines, Ford Motor (F), Merrill Lynch (MER), NYSE Euronext (NYX)

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Next year the sale of prescription drugs in the U.S is expected to be the slowest in years, resulting from tough regulation and cost-controls, according to IMS Health Inc., a health-care information and consulting firm, and reported by the Wall Street Journal.
• NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) has paid $90M for a 1% stake in Bovespa, the owner of Brazil’s largest exchange. The move is seen as an attempt by NYSE Euronext to increase its presence in Brazil, reported the Financial Times.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The U.K. Times reported that British telecom company BT Group (NYSE: BT) is expected to announce that it will cut thousands of jobs when it reports its Q2 results next week.
• Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) has notified pension boards that it is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which believes the company may have violated federal regulations, reported the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
• The Detroit News reported that Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and the UAW talks adjourned at 1am and will continue later this morning. Sources say that progress was made in the talks although no agreement was reached.

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