Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer
Google Inc.'s stock, once a Wall Street standout, performed like the rest of the crowd this year - horribly.
After starting 2008 near $700, the Mountain View Internet giant's shares closed Wednesday at $302.95, a 57 percent decline.
It's a major reversal from the stellar performance that investors enjoyed in previous years. Since an initial public offering in 2004, the company's shares soared more than eightfold, peaking at $747.24 on Nov. 7, 2007, before retreating.
Like many companies, Google's fortunes are dimming with the economy. Growth in online advertising is slowing as advertisers cut back on marketing, raising questions about Google's moneymaking machine.
Todd Greenwald, an analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group, predicted in a research report Wednesday that spending on search engine ads, Google's biggest business, should hold up better than other sectors of online advertising. Search engine ads have an advantage over other forms of marketing in that their success is more easily measured.
But Greenwald said the lucrative niche will still likely suffer as consumers spend less and ad prices drop. As a result, there's little reason to believe that Google's shares will rise significantly for up to a year, he predicted.
Still, Greenwald voiced confidence in Google's long-term outlook, calling it the "the best house in a bad neighborhood." He added that "Google should weather the upcoming slowdown very well" and that it "will come out of this slowdown in a stronger competitive position."
Amid the downturn, Google has taken steps to boost its profit by placing ads in areas that previously featured none, such as its finance pages, and ramping up advertising elsewhere, including YouTube. Meanwhile, Google has tried to curtail spending by cutting an undisclosed number of contractors and throttling back on some of its lavish employee perks.
In any case, many companies would be happy to have Google's problems, given the bleak economy that is steamrolling many businesses. Highly profitable and dominant in search with a 63.5 percent U.S. market share, according to comScore Inc., Google remains a powerhouse despite its slumping stock.
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