Google: Has it lived up to its Hype?

When Google [GOOG.NASDAQ] listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange 3 years ago there was much hype surrounding the IPO, people were tripping over themselves to get stock and brokers sang its praises from Wall Street to as many people as they could.

Has the IPO lived up to all the hype and excitement?

If the share price is anything to go by then the answer would have to be a resounding yes.

The closing price for Google stock on October 10 was US$625.68c, up over 45% over the last year and up over 700% on its $85 IPO price.

Those are some spectacular figures, rivaling only Scarlett Johanson and Jessica Alba for sexiness.

Some other spectacular figures are its trailing P/E of 50.82 and almost $200 billion market cap,
making it one of the biggest listed companies in America, now even bigger than Walmart, [WMT].

While Google is growing very quickly with revenue and profit increasing, the financial data that might support the stock price doesn't match.

Buyers of Google stock have driven the share price up so high at the level it is now there is humongous growth already factored in.

Clearly Google is a very smart company, it dominates its rather large niche in online advertising and continues to develop innovative and clever ways to get more eyeballs watching its ads.

We have seen this sort of thing happen many times before with "tech" type companies, IBM used to dominate the mainframe and then PC market and now doesn't, and Microsoft [MSFT]the PC operating system and software market which it still largely does but it shows early signs of slipping.

No company can continue to operate with the spectacular growth that Google is currently experiencing and its stock price is clearly way over valued.

Look at Microsoft again. By comparison its financial data figures make Jessica Alba look like Joan Rivers after a late night drunken spree.





Microsoft has a net profit bigger than Google's revenue with a trailing P/E of just over 21, better profit margins, a dividend and a stock price of just 30 bucks.

Are you getting my point!!

While Google is a fantastic company with a great future, its stock is massively overpriced and any sustained weakness in its performance will see the stock fall just as quickly as it went up.

Be careful.


Google Prospectus

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c Share Investor 2007

Wednesday Political Soup: Edition 1

Robin Hood Collects More

I have been sick recently but back in the saddle here and at my other blog , now lets rip into them.

Bizarre stuff that Micheal Cullen, otherwise known as Robin Hood in Parliament and his Socialist mates from the NZ Labour Party keep stating that tax cuts by National would lead to inflation because Kiwis would have the temerity to spend their own money on goods and services but reckless spending by Labour on "working for families" welfare, free money and nonsense "social Spending" for students doesn't have the same effect.

I will let readers work that one out for themselves.

The 8.7 Billion dollar question in Parliament today was whether Labour was going to give back taxpayers money soon or closer to November 2008. Seeing a national election is held around that time the only answer left to ask is how much of our money is to be used to buy votes.

Cullen is tight lipped on the possibility of tax cuts next year. Remember this man promised a 66 cent tax cut, that is 66c for the average person but changed his mind when he decided he was going to waste the cut by spending on new glasses for him and wrinkle fee pants for the time next year when John key walks all over his lunatic economic theories.

The 8.7 Billion dollar surplus revealed today has burnt more than a hole in Cullen's pocket.


Romantic Movies

Unsurprising news released today that noted Stalinist Helen Clark's favourite movie is the bio of young South American mass murderer and torturer Che Guevara – The Motorcycle Diaries starring Gael Garcia Bernal.

Che, you looked so handsome and dashing on your motorcycle! But you were even more handsome and dashing when you were terrorizing Cuban peasants, blowing their skulls to bits with your personal sidearm! You romantic Stalin-loving poet you!

Of course our own Aunty Helen is also a great fan of the totalitarian Stalin, incidentally also a mass murderer, torturer and democracy hater.

Both Che and Stalin helped lead their people to starvation and poverty.

Clarke is clearly obsessed with bringing the best parts of Stalin and Che's ideas to life down here in the South Pacific.

Match that with the Swedish Model and you have yourself a recipe for our own wee totalitarian state right here in godzone .

I can't wait!!

I'm not sure that Clarke's pronouncements today that she wanted the death penalty stopped in all countries of the world where it operates, stack up with her love of these two benevolent leaders.

An individual who murders, rapes and tortures another member of society surely deserves the death penalty doesn't he Darren?

Hang on a second I'm missing the point!

Che and Stalin only knocked off the good people.



Winston: Cool, Smooth, Satisfying


New this week that Winston Peters, Helen Clark's lapdog and former Rottweiler has ffd up big time by failing to inform his master that Air New Zealand was ferrying OZ troops to Iraq has him scurrying about the media and Parliament like the sewer rat that he clearly is.

His decades of going after rule breakers and getting them to take responsibility look shallow in the face of Peters failing to fall on his own sword and the longer he stays the nuttier he gets.

The Italian number looks a little creased big boy.


Mt. Saint Helen





C Darren Rickard 2007

Burger Fuel and Coke

I and many others have been critical of Fuel Worldwide [BFW.NZ] and their appallingly bad IPO but the company has today announced some positive news.

I will quote the press release directly release from Burger Fuel:


BurgerFuel opens flagship Sydney store. 

BurgerFuel has taken its international expansion programme an important step
forward, opening its second Australian store yesterday.

Located right under the iconic Coke sign at the entrance to Kings Cross,
Sydney, the landmark store is a key element in BurgerFuel's global expansion
plans.

BurgerFuel founder, Chris Mason, says this store represents a foundation
stone for the company's overseas development and its high-traffic location
will not just generate interest in the brand in Australia, but further afield
as well.

"Kings Cross is very much a tourist Mecca, so this new store will be a
showroom for our brand and the BurgerFuel formula."

"The Australian market poses some challenges for us, but the growing sales
and great response from the locals to our Newtown store, which opened last
December, shows there is a market for us across the Tasman."

He says the company will continue steady expansion in New Zealand, while at
the same time building the brand in Australia.

The new Sydney store is the 23rd BurgerFuel store to open, with a further one
opening in Napier, New Zealand, later this month.

The Kings Cross store is employing the proven parts of the BurgerFuel
formula. Its menu, which comprises high-quality burgers that are big on
flavour, is consistent with that enjoyed by its New Zealand customers.

"Our distinctive in-store design, which is a strong aspect of the BurgerFuel
experience, is also being used in Kings Cross. After 12 years of development
we have refined our approach to the brand, the stores, and the products to an
international level.

"We intend to build a successful operation in Kings Cross and use that to
offer franchisees in Australia the opportunity to be part of the BurgerFuel
system".

The Kings Cross store will be company owned. All BurgerFuel's New Zealand
stores are franchised, other than the company's first ever store in Ponsonby
Rd, which opened in 1995.


Conclusion
The area of Kings Cross where BF have sited their new store is, as Mason says a "tourist Mecca" and concepts like BF do well in areas such as this because much of the human traffic passing through like to spend money on food while being entertained in the 24hr sex and nightclub centre that is Kings Cross.

Living in the cross during the late 1980s(ahh those were the days) there were many new food outlets of concepts that were tried there first.

I remember one of the first Mc Cafes' being tried out there and look at them now.

Mason and BF have certainly come to the right place to get exposure.

I wish them luck.

BFW Shares closed even today at NZ .61c


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c Share Investor 2007

Research, Research, Research

One of the easiest ways to lose money on the stock market and other investments is to take advice from others.

So listen carefully!!

The road to wealth is littered with the corpses of investors who have taken advice from friends, acquaintances, lift attendants, taxi drivers and probably worst of all stockbrokers and financial advisers.

Other people, especially financial advisers, mostly have their own agendas and interests at heart. That is just natural human behaviour.

The best way to keep your hard earned capital is to do your own research, that way if things do go pear shaped you have only yourself to blame.

Quite often though brokers and those in the industry have more information at their fingertips than the average investor. Those on the "inside" are privy to information from company management and get access to CEO's and directors thinking and business direction, all the things that are important when making an investment decision.

You think this info is going to be parleyed to you and me? Not on your nelly kimosab'e.

Any information the general investing public get from financial "insiders" is filtered and spun so much before it gets to us the stuff left over is almost as useless as Britney Spears as a spokesman for fruit of the loom knickers.

The garden variety stock market investor certainly has it better since the introduction of the internet and the various bits and pieces of information that can be found at the touch of a button on the Google search box but even then he must be aware that much of this must be taken with a grain of salt as well.

Get more than one independent source for your research on a particular company or investment.

You must also read company reports closely and if it is too hard to understand the language used or there is a tome the size of the bible that explains the financial data then move on.

If management have to explain their company reports then they just could be hiding something.

Some companies that might be on your investment radar will accept calls from investors wanting to ask questions. Give it a go, they can only say no.

If after you have done your research and you find an investment that fits your criteria, assuming you have one, then you are almost ready to plunk down some shekels.

Before that if you have any doubt at all, then don't push the buy button. Go back and start the process over again until the doubts are gone.

Remember, it was hard work earning the money to invest in the first place so don't make it easy to lose it.


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c Share Investor 2007