Google Inc's stock price continued its recent upturn amid renewed investor optimism about the moneymaking prowess of the Internet's leading search engine.
Shares of the California-based company surged US$12.98, or 3.4 percent on Monday, to close at US$390.38 on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Despite the rebound, Google's shares remain well below their record high of US$475.11 reached in early January.
The recent recovery reflects yet another swing in sentiment about one of the US' most scrutinized stocks.
The rampant investor anxieties unleashed by a letdown in Google's fourth-quarter earnings have been supplanted by revived confidence in the company's ability to develop more products and negotiate more deals that will boost its future profit.
Analysts are expecting Google's profit this year to approach US$3 billion, improving upon last year's earnings of US$1.47 billion.
The latest bit of Google enthusiasm appeared to be driven by the expansion of Google's online payment and video services, as well as an analyst report suggesting the company will soon announce a deal to install its software on Dell Inc's personal computers.
Google's top executives are also expected to reassure and possibly excite investors tomorrow when they're scheduled to discuss the company's strategy and products with stock market analysts.
``We believe the [analyst meeting] could be a positive catalyst for Google shares as investors gain greater insight and comfort'' about the company's prospects, Lehman Brothers analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a research note on Monday.
UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter and Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney also provided upbeat assessments about Google in their own reports issued on Monday.
Both analysts were intrigued with Google's test of an online payment system for its recently introduced classified advertising system, known as Base.
Google late last week began processing payments for "a very small number of sellers" in the listing service.
Base currently has about 40 million listings, Mahaney has estimated, laying the foundation for an e-commerce market that could generate a new source of revenue for the company if the payment system catches on.
Google so far makes virtually all of its money from online ads.
In his note, Schachter also reported that he had just bought a Dell computer featuring factory-installed Google software -- a toolbar and desktop search tools -- as well as a setting designed to send Internet traffic to a Web page jointly operated by Google and Dell.
The cobranded Web page, (www.google.com/ig/dell) follows recent reports that Google is negotiating a three-year deal that will pay Dell US$1 billion to install Google's software on its computers.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last