| As I have said before, I believe that technical analysis (charts and all the hocus pocus associated with it) is only slightly useful. Specifically, it may aid in measuring the psychological short-term component of price movements. However, in the long run all that matters are earnings. You will see a quick rise back to 30+ as it becomes apparent that the selloff was overdone. The beginning of this rise should occur on earnings day, tomorrow, Tue Feb 12th. Bear in mind that I am one of the largest PPC advertisers around, so I have a good feel and understanding for the industry trends relevant here. Google's AdWords program is based upon impressions, not clickthroughs. It is largely ineffective in terms of the ROI it produces for advertisers. Should they even think about switching to a highest-bid methodology they will be in violation of Overture's patent. In addition, Google (nor any other company) can easily compete with Overture because it takes many years to build the advertiser base Overture has. It also takes a large dedicated team, experience in processing the listings, a strict relevancy system in place, etc to match Overture's position. For all of these reasons and more, there is no reason to worry that Overture will be unseated as the dominant player in the PPC search engine industry any time soon. Yahoo just extended their partnership with Overture for another quarter...this is their biggest partner by far. The Earthlink deal they just lost was literally immaterial to their bottom line. Hype and cheer all you want, but mark my words yet again (Ive been right every time so far)...Overture will rebound back to the 30s quite soon, and into the 40s or maybe even the 50s within a few months. Earnings are all that matter, and they are growing theirs like mad! |
