April 2004 Archives

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.

The chop continues. Even though it feels like the market's been getting crushed of late, I still see the trend as sideways. My Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) are all converged and going sideways. And the NASDAQ is back between its 50 and 200-day moving averages again. The NASDAQ was saved by its Jan - March downtrend line again yesterday. Other potential support levels are the 200 DMA (1932) and the March low (call it 1900). The one really worrisome indicator I see is OBV on the NASDAQ. It seems to be predicting much more downside.

The S&P and Dow look better than the Naz, but they still have the same sideways profile given their MMAs and their positions in relation to their 50 and 200 MAs.

Google has filed their S-1 with the SEC. Briefing.com just posted the following (emphasis is theirs... and you've gotta love the 14:42 note):

14:42 Market moves to lows of day; hearing large seller of S&Ps

Traders also talking about the 'deflationary impact' of the Google IPO auction process, saying that an efficient market doesn't work well in their line of work.

14:17 Google bidding process

S-1 says: We plan to conduct this auction in five stages-Qualification; Bidding; Auction Closing; Pricing; and Allocation... When the preliminary prospectus becomes available, you will be able to obtain a unique bidder ID from a web site. Approximately x days after the date on the cover of this prospectus, all investors that have qualified to bid may submit bids indicating their interest in our offering through one of our underwriters... To submit a bid, you should contact one of the following underwriters: Morgan Stanley and CSFB. If you are interested in submitting a bid but do not currently have a brokerage account with any of the underwriters named above, you may contact one of these underwriters to inquire about opening an account and submitting a bid. Co will have the ability to reject speculative bids and bids that have the potential to manipulate or disrupt the bidding process.... Once we and our underwriters have determined the IPO price, our underwriters will begin the allocation process. All investors who have submitted and not withdrawn bids with a price that is equal to or greater than the IPO offering price will be eligible to receive an allocation of shares.

14:16 YHOO Yahoo!: Google to terminate pact with Yahoo! (54.35 -1.48)

Yahoo! moves to lows of day following statement in Google's S-1 filing that it has notified Yahoo of its election to terminate its agreement, effective July 2004. This agreement with Yahoo accounted for less than 3% of Google's net revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003 and less than 3% for the three months ended March 31, 2004.

14:08 Google IPO to be auction-based

S-1 says: The price to the public and allocation of shares will be determined primarily by an auction process. As part of this auction process, the co is attempting to assess the market demand for our Class A common stock and to set the size and price to the public of this offering to meet that demand. Buyers hoping to capture profits shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading may be disappointed.

14:05 Google Financials

In the most recent qtr, co earned $0.42/share (+110%) on sales of $389.64 mln (+118%).

14:01 Google Files S-1: Financial Data

Sales for 2003 were $961.9 mln, up from $348 mln in 2002 for a 176% increase. Q1 sales were $389.6 mln, up 118% yoy. Q1 EPS was $0.24, up vs $0.10 last year.

13:59 Google -- The long-awaited S-1 has been filed

I'll add that I think it's a very wise move on Google's part to do the IPO via an auction. This should ensure that the company raises as much money as possible, as opposed to the traditional system, where the underwriters severely under-price the offering and give all the gains to their best customers.

Here's a CBS MarketWatch article about Google's profits - Google reveals top-notch profits

And another one by the man himself, Herb Greenberg - If Google insiders sell, should you buy?

Edit to add: Jim Cramer just made some interesting comments on Google. He said that before the financials were released to the public he'd asked 8 people how much they thought Google's annual revenue would be. Not one person said over $1 Billion. He then said that the actual is 1.8 Billion. (I don't know where he came up with that number, but based on their last quarter, I come up with $1.56 Billion) He then said that Google's revenue per employee is twice that of Yahoo. And he made a point to make clear that Yahoo's number was the highest he'd ever seen. He says he expects Google to be valued at 35 Billion (the same as Yahoo right now! ) when it goes public.

I just got received an e-mail asking what I think about Google's IPO. I thought I'd answer it here because with all the hype the IPO is receiving, I'm sure many people have the same question. (And besides, I need something to blog about during this boring week.)

Bambi Francisco wrote a piece about the Google's IPO in which she made a lot of great points about relative valuation and the increasing supply of internet stocks. I think she did a great job in covering all of that stuff, so I won't bother talking about those issues.

My concern with this IPO is that it's over-hyped and the little guy will be left holding the bag. No doubt those who get in at the offer price (the price set by the underwriters before the stock trades publicly) will do very well once the shares hit the open market. But my fear would be that the stock opens at a huge premium to the offer price and drops like a rock from there. (Remember what happened to the PALM IPO?) I doubt that Google will be as spectacular as that on the upside or the downside. My guess is that the underwriters will do a much better job of pricing the offering realistically and thus there will be no huge profit that people are panicking to take.

As with any IPO, I wouldn't recommend buying shares until after the stock's traded for a while -- like a month or so. The underwriters usually initiate coverage on IPOs after 22 days (I think) of trading, so I'd like to see how the stock reacts to their obligatory bullish hype and aggressive price targets. And certainly the first 2 or 3 days are only for daytraders who have the quickest of execution systems and/or those with strong stomachs. One of my favorite set-ups is to catch a recent IPO right when it makes a new all-time high after it's been trading for more than a month. It's very typical for these new issues to make a bowl (cup) pattern. I like to buy them when they complete the right side of the bowl and notch that new all-time high. That generally makes sure that the sellers are gone, and anybody that shorted it is now scrambling to cover. The climb back up to the old high will also show you that the stock's got some real sponsorship.

That's about all I can say for now. I'll revisit the topic once the stock starts trading.

Update: Now that they've filed for their IPO I've added some more interesting notes here.

The last two weeks or so have been filled with nothing but choppiness and consolidation. That's why I don't do much (swing) trading during these earnings report laden weeks. I'm decidedly neutral on the market right now, but hopefully things will become clearer in a few days. Somebody IM me when we move...

... the market's looking good again. :-) After a couple of days of confusion thanks to Greenspan the market's have resumed the bounce they started on Monday. That NASDAQ, for its part, is back above the morning star it completed on Monday and above all the moving averages (the 10, 20, 50...). I think that the interest rate sell-off did nothing but suck in some more bears. And I might have been one of them if the market wasn't already so oversold. So once again I'm looking for a retest of the April highs.

Well the one (big) thing that could have spoiled that nice technical set-up I talked about yesterday came to pass. As soon as the text of Greenspan's speech hit the wires the market went into a tailspin. The result is that the NASDAQ obliterated its morning star by closing below the low of that pattern. It now sits right on the top of its old downtrend channel. It's now make or break time for the NASDAQ -- it could easily slip back into that channel. If it weren't for the interest rate issues (damn those fundamentals) I wouldn't be too concerned because we're so oversold. But in this case the fundies can certainly trump the technicals. It'll be really interesting to see how the market reacts to Greenspan's words tomorrow.

I'm glad to see that more stock related blogs are popping up (even if they are on Clog*Spot). I just added Between the Hedges and Buy Low, Sell High to my list of stock market blogs.

I really liked the action in the NASDAQ today. After testing the top of the January - March downtrend channel on Thursday and Friday the Naz was able to bounce nicely today. In the process it made a morning star-like pattern while also rising back above its 50-day moving average. My stochastic indicator also flashed a buy signal today. About the only thing wrong with today was the low volume. Barring any shocking statements from Elmer the next two days I think the Naz may be headed back to at least the April high and maybe the upper Bollinger Band (~2107) if we're lucky.

I just added Trader Wizard to my blogroll and my list of stock market blogs. Take a look and be sure to check out the home page. There's more to the site than just the weblog.

The Big Picture highlights what Mark Cuban has to say about how stocks are valued. (Cuban's entire statement is here ) Mark is absolutely right that supply and demand, and the mood of the crowd (psychology) matter much more than all that fundamental mumbo jumbo. Especially in the short term.