Tech stock happy days are here--yet again?
With Google's share price well over $600 and Henry Blodget a born-again pundit, is history about to repeat itself?
In advance of the October 15 debut of Fox's new television business network, media svengali Roger Ailes spoke with The Wall Street Journal about Fox's plans. On other occasions, Ailes has described how the Fox entry will present a more pro-business face to the world than CNBC. That will be a tall order. With the exception of Mark Haynes and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, CNBC's coverage is dominated by suck-ups and sycophants to the rich and powerful.
It's hard to believe Fox can engineer a more business-friendly turn. Then again, these are the same folks who left CNN and MSNBC in the dust by featuring a menu of leggy blond presenters and pro-conservative bloviators.
I was reading the Ailes interview as Google climbed above $600 for the first time in its brief but remarkable history. The inexorable march of Google's share price, breaking one record after the next, was an apt reminder that these are flush times in the business world.
And that's especially so for the technology business, where new products and new ideas are feeding an optimism that seemingly remains impervious to current events, natural or otherwise. High flyers like Apple, Research In Motion and Amazon.com continue soaring on strong sales and fat earnings reports but it is Google that remains the most amazing performer of them all.
After bouncing around $600 earlier today, shares of Google surged at the end of the trading day this afternoon to finish at $609.62 And it may not stop there. A financial services outfit called Nollenberger Capital Partners has increased its target price to $650 from $575. Meanwhile Bear Stearns has raised Google's price target to $700.
Even a disgraced stock cheerleader like Henry Blodget is weighing in on the betting. Back from his exile on Elba, Blogger has reincarnated himself (naturally, as a blogger), and earlier this month, Blodget raised the possibility that Google could hit $2,000 a share.
Why should anyone still believe Blodget? After all, wasn't this the same twerp who publicly pumped companies he privately disparaged to Merrill Lynch colleagues? (Blodget was later taken down by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, agreeing to a lifetime banishment from Wall Street and the payment of a $4 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission).
However few people remember that during the height of the Internet bubble, Blodget's "crazy" prediction that Amazon would hit $400 a share came true--even though the stock subsequently reversed course and came crashing down to earth.