The days of $475 per share may be gone forever for Google’s stock price, as three issuances of shares and plenty of insider selling appear to have helped bring the price down from the stratosphere.
Bloomberg columnist Mark Gilbert also noticed this trend. He blames an almost 18 percent drop in Google’s stock price from its peak of nearly $475 in January of this year on “relentless stock sales by the Internet search company’s executives.”
Gilbert noted that as of August 9th, Google executives had sold about 23 million shares since the magical Valentine’s Day that took the biggest restrictions on insider selling off of them. The company has been profitable and those who have made it that way deserve to benefit from it.
In his column, Gilbert made an observation that we noted in January: Googlers aren’t buying what the company is selling:
Nevertheless, it is remarkable that not a single Google insider has bought a single share of the company in the 18 months since the IPO lock-ups expired, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Washington Service, which tracks insider sales. Philip Remek at Guzman & Co. in Coral Gables, Florida, is still the only equity analyst with a “sell” rating on Google; you could argue that he’s not such a lone wolf, given the behavior of the company’s owners.
Although Gilbert places some blame for Google’s drop in value, 7 percent for 2006 so far, on insider selling, it also seems that Google’s follow-up stock issuances may have assisted those shares in their gentle downward drift. If the drift brings the stock closer to its truer value, that may not be a bad thing.
—
Tag:
Add to 
Bookmark Murdok: 
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
