Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

Google (GOOG) announced yesterday that they may shut down their Chinese operations completely and the feeling amongst analysts is that this is more likely than not to happen. The Chinese search engine market is dominated by Baidu (BIDU) with Google a distant second. The announcement has caused Google’s stock to drop and Baidu’s stock to rise significantly because if Google drops out of China, Baidu will have nearly 95% of the Chinese search market. Yahoo operations in China are completely run by Alibaba, which is 39% owned by Yahoo and is a very small player in the search market.

In the long run this might hamper Google’s growth over the long term because China is the largest market in the world with significant growth potential for Google. However in the short term the effect on Google is minimal – a loss of somewhere between 300-600 million in revenue.

With their current position Google has really established their “Do No Evil” policy. Their reason for leaving is a connection between successful hacking attempts to steal intellectual property, censorship and targeting of human rights activists by the hackers.

Most multinationals don’t want to ignore the Chinese market inspite of rampant theft of intellectual property, blatant cloning of popular items and tight government control on everything because China is where the growth is. Maybe others will follow suit but it is unlikely.

As an investor, buy Google (I own 2 measly shares), buy Baidu.

The Nasdaq is up almost 50% this year while the Dow is up almost 20%. Tech stocks are reporting stellar earnings with Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google amongst others all beating estimates.

If the trend continues, 2009 will really be the year of the tech stock. And it isn’t even really that much of a bubble. Many tech stocks have non stellar P/Es. They are still higher than the S&P average but maybe justified considering the performance. INTC had a dismal last year which drove it’s trailing P/E to around 50. But now it seems to be back on track and has a forward P/E of only 13.5! Google has a forward P/E of about 24, Apple about 26. Amazon has the highest amongst the P/E ratios at 46 but as long as the recession continues, Amazon will probably continue to beat expectations as more shoppers turn to online shopping for more items.

Walmart.com, my new favorite destination for online shopping with free site to store shipping and prices that often beat Amazon, even after tax and the simplicity of returning to store, great customer service also can’t seem to affect the Amazon juggernaut much.

Windows 7  is selling like hot cakes and if Windows Mobile 7 is even a thousandth as successful as Windows 7, we should see Microsoft making some headway into the Mobile market. Really the best phones are either running Android or Windows Mobile and the current iPhone has nothing on them except the App Store. Expect both Android and WinMo to catch up quickly.

What can I say, if you can stomach the risk, wait for the excitement of  the current quarter die out and get some tech stock for yourself during holiday season.

Disclaimer: Parchayi and me own AAPL, INTC and GOOG stock.

Looks like I’m Posting a lot about Microsoft lately. Miscrosoft missed analyst estimates and revenues were down 17% and earnings down more than 1.2 billion$ (yes that is billion) as compared to last year.

Maybe Vista is to blame, maybe the bad economy though Intel’s results would indicate otherwise. Every few weeks I hear about something new from Google. I just got invited to Google Voice and recently discovered Google Wave. The only thing new and exciting I’ve heard from MS in the online front is Bing. I did make a post a few weeks back criticizing Microsoft but they did one good thing. Released the Win 7 beta for everyone to try and also establish that it really is not as bad as Vista.

In related news, Amazon posted bad results too. MSFT + AMZN both posting bad results is driving the markets down today but the Dow is still over 9000. A few more bad earnings and we might fall below 9000 once again. A few more good earning and we might stay above for a few months.

If you are looking at investing in one of Amazon or Microsoft after they fall today, my pick would be Amazon.

Intel and Google, both companies that I own stock in, both recently reporting. Intel reported spectacular results on Tuesday (as compared to analyst estimates and the previous quarter, still below last years results). Intel also upped it’s guidance. Positive news from Intel lifted the market up.

Google was the next to report and even though Google made it’s biggest profit ever, growth was the slowest ever. Google also had some fewer employees than last year. Also Google’s profit was more a result of shaving off expenses and not from increasing revenues. This was a disappointment that dragged Google stock slightly lower.

Apple (I own and the stock is finally approaching my average buying price), Microsoft (don’t own) report next week. Positive earnings are expected from Apple and the stock is hitting new 52 week highs. Micrsoft, not so much even though Windows 7 might cause an upgrade cycle.

In any case, some good some bad, overall the picture is neither good nor bad. Just so so. Personally my expectations are for tech stocks in general to be sideways or slowly go upwards. I have been wrong before and I probably wil be wrong again but I just don’t have very high expectations in the near future from the market overall. Next year might bring some better news?