Wedbush Starts Google (GOOG) at Neutral; Facing Off Against Googlenomics

July 12, 2012 4:56 PM EDT
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Price: $343.54 -0.12%

Rating Summary:
    44 Buy, 6 Hold, 0 Sell

Rating Trend: Up Up

Today's Overall Ratings:
    Up: 13 | Down: 14 | New: 11
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Wedbush initiates coverage on Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) with a Neutral. PT $640.00.

Analyst, James Dix, said, "Our three-pronged thesis is: 1) although our revenue estimates are above the Street’s on higher growth assumptions, our margin estimates are below the Street’s, 2) we see the risk of higher opex growth to respond to competitive pressure in search a) on the fast-growing mobile platform (e.g., Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)), b) in the application of social signals to commerce (e.g., impact of what my Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) friends buy on what I buy), and, perhaps most of all, c) from vertical search/ecommerce platforms (e.g., Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN)), and 3) we have a differentiated longer-term view that the economics of paid search advertising could suffer from the encroachment of “paid-attention” marketing."

Dix noted some positive catalysts being: 1) Mobile; 2) Unwarranted Platform pessimism; 3) Contrarian Call regarding legal issues.

Some negative catalysts include: 1) Margin compressing; 2) Headline risk from new platform competition; 3) Strategic errors from 'Big Bets'

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Google click here. For more ratings news on Google click here.

Shares of Google closed at $571.19 yesterday.


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