Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[basserdan]

*** Rick Ackerman Commentary ***

>>>GOOG is a FRAUD.......<<<
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Hi Maven,
Maybe so, but even you would have to admit that their shareprice makes them a potential takeover powerhouse...


What If Google Bought Microsoft?

Rick Ackerman
Tuesday, Nov 08

Excerpt from the current Rick's Picks (website).

Google is closing fast on a $407 target (or $418 if any higher) we’ve had in our sights for a while. The stock is not so much a proxy for the market as a nose cone, but we follow it closely nonetheless because of its power to inspire the downtrodden investor. Not long ago, when GOOG shares were trading around $335, I was feeling inspired myself – to short the stock, as some of you may recall. Of course, no one I know personally has made a dime buying put options for maybe two years, but that could change in a Wall Street minute. And Google, with its dot.com-like trajectory, has held out the promise, since its IPO, of a spectacular payday for bearish speculators. In theory, all one needs is unflappable patience, iron nerves, and a willingness to lose one’s house, car, Rolex and spouse while waiting for the stock’s inevitable plunge into hell.

Fortunately, a luncheon date with the smartest kid I know disabused me of all such notions. He, a reviewer of computer stuff for Stanford’s student newspaper, told me that Google would someday leave Microsoft choking on dust. Lo, I took a gimlet-eyed second look at GOOG’s chart, and the $407 target smacked me in the eye. Now let’s suppose, just for entertainment’s sake, that the stock shreds that hidden pivot in an hour or two, then bolts higher. We might ask, at what level of capitalization would Google have the wherewithal to acquire Microsoft? Not that Bill Gates would allow such a thing. But just think what an upstart like Google could do with the tens of billions of dollars of cash that Microsoft has been sitting on. You can darn well bet they wouldn’t sink it into R&D for Windows 2012, or a fun new look for Excel. Here’s a question that I’d love to see Wired magazine tackle: What would Google do with Microsoft’s money? Me, I’d start by offering a $20 billion prize to anyone who could bring Frank Sinatra back for one last concert.

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/ackerman/current.html