Priced for Perfection at 2006-01-23 19:40:19
Earnings warnings, rising energy costs, and cautious guidance going forward all weighed on the markets Friday. Today's across the board whipping just goes to show what happens when a market is priced for perfection.
Coming off the heels of Yahoo's disappointing results, Dow giants General Electric and Citigroup failed to live up to analyst expectations. In addition, Motorola also did not meet consensus estimates.
One of the biggest news items of the day was the sell-off in Google (GOOG). The stock plunged 36.96 to 399.46 after the Justice Department took action to get the company to turn over information about people searching for porn on their website.
I do not believe that the recent sell-ff in Google shares was entirely attributed to the actions of the Justice Department. That was just an excuse. The real nervousness is the company's upcoming earnings report.
The jitters began on Wednesday after Yahoo announced its earnings shortfall. Google's earnings are due out Jan. 31.
Do I think this is the demise of Google's meteoric rise? Probably not, that would be too easy. After Friday's plunge, every arm chair market expert has more than likely rushed in to short the stock. I would not be surprised to see the shares rise to the $450 level before the January 31st earnings are released.
Blog Source - http://www.johnmugarian.com/index.rdf
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