After the close of trading on Thursday, the beloved Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will report earnings for Q4-2007. This is the last of the internet giants to report earnings. Interestingly enough, all of other pure-play web giants that reported earnings have been battered right after the report. It seems that even the Internet is now economically sensitive at a time when investors are trying to find equilibrium on growth versus value in a slowing economy.
Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) fell 8% on Wednesday after the Tuesday earnings report. Even though shareholders here are more patient than any other shareholders, 2008 is only ‘yet another year of a turnaround.’ Yahoo! is actually more expensive on its multiples ahead than Google because it is still the largest web property outside of search, it has the longest portal history of the Internet pure-plays, and there is a would-be takeover premium in the stock. If Yahoo! management dug in and said they will fight any partnerships or takeovers, and if it just bullied Wall Street on a "we’re sticking to the #2 strategy" then we could even argue it is still 25% too high.
Frankly, comparing Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) to Google is just not a real comparison. At least that is our take. But web-watchers look at all these for the inner workings of the web, monitoring traffic, sales, earnings, commentary, new developments and so on. And the metrics of those properties are being used to judge elsewhere, particularly as eBay was said to be toning down ad spending with Google.
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