Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Time Warner’s AOL all want to provide a nice return to shareholders as much as they want site visitors to click on ads, maybe even more so.
In reading about search advertising and Internet portals, the big four stand out. It might be argued that Google isn’t a true portal, but with millions of Internet users going to the Google home page to start their online journeys, it serves as a de facto portal anyway.
This is just a quick look at how each of them has fared in the real world through 2005. Ok, calling Wall Street market thinking the “real world” may at times seem unreal, but it does give a measurement of how people vote with their dollars.
In that voting contest, Google has been the big winner. The 52-week low for shares of the GOOG went for $172.57 on March 14. Congratulate yourself for bargain shopping just before St. Patrick’s Day if you bought in on that date. GOOG closed at $424.64 yesterday, and some analysts think $500 per share is attainable.
Google’s new partner, AOL, is part of Time Warner. Until late 2005, all was not happy at Time Warner. Shareholders were unhappy, especially Carl Icahn, who wasn’t real thrilled with the AOL-Google partnership; he sees it as potentially “disastrous.”
Flat is not the word a company likes to see used to describe its stock. But when your stock (TWX) is $2.21 off its 52-week high and has varied within a range of $16.10 – $19.74 over a year, well, flat is as flat does. Sorry, Richard Parsons.
Microsoft probably isn’t a big fan of the F-word itself. December 26, 2003: MSFT share price $27.01. December 28, 2004: share price $26.95. December 28, 2005 price at market open: $26.46. It’s a source of massive frustration for Ballmer and Gates all the way down to the cube and office dwellers in Redmond.
That brings us to Yahoo. They get virtually ignored with all the attention paid to Google, Microsoft, Google, Time Warner, Google, and Google in the media. Shares of YHOO are a bit flat, but at least have risen over the year. Just not by much: $37.90 last December 28, $39.94 at open today.
All four companies believe they have bright futures and the way to get better. For Google, it’s new services while maintaining its advertising dominance. Yahoo has been branching into content and entertainment while rolling out a new ad publishing network for site publishers.
Microsoft has big ad dreams too, with its AdCenter debuting in the US in 2006; new versions of the Windows operating system and the Office suite could help. Time Warner threw open the doors to AOL’s content this past summer and inked a deal with AOL that could push its ad fortunes higher.
(Note: this article is a simple look at historical stock prices and potential business developments based on news stories about the companies. Anyone taking this as investment advice should consider the tremendous advances made in the fields of psychiatry and neurosurgery, and consult a physician about any purchase/selling urges they have after reading this story.
Of course, if the urge to withdraw vast sums of money from the bank for the purpose of splurging persists, afflicted persons are invited to stop by the murdok offices to drop off their briefcases full of small denomination bills in non-sequential serial numberings before the close of business today. Repeat until the urge passes.)
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
