New Trend Tracking Feature in Google Finance

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:02:22 +0000

Google has introduced Google Domestic Trends on Google Finance. This is a feature that tracks search traffic (on Google) across specific sectors of the economy.

“The changes in the search volume of a given sector on google.com may provide useful economic insight,” Google says. “We have created 23 indexes that track the major economic sectors, such as retail, auto and unemployment. Each index value is baselined at 1.0 on January 1, 2004 and is calculated and displayed on the Google Finance charts as a 7-day moving average. You can easily compare actual stocks and market indexes to these Google Trends on the charts.”

The trends the feature tracks include:

- Advertising and Marketing
- Air Travel
- Auto Buyers
- Auto Financing
- Automotive
- Banking and Personal Finance
- Business
- Computers and Electronics
- Construction
- Credit and Lending
- Durable Goods
- Finance and Insurance
- Furniture
- Industries
- Investments
- Jobs
- Luxury Goods
- Mortgage
- Real Estate
- Rental
- Retail Trade
- Travel
- Unemployment

Google shares an example of the Luxuries Index, which tracks queries like [jewelry], [rings], [diamond], [ring], [jewelers], [tiffany], etc.

Data from the indexes are available for download, letting users utilize it in their own models. More information about the indexes can be found here. The Domestic Trends feature comes as the result of research from Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian, who explains his methodology here.

Time Warner Reclaims Google’s Stake In AOL

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:48:14 +0000

Google may be great at search, advertising, and a lot of other things, but its investment strategies could apparently use some work. Time Warner has bought back Google’s five percent stake in AOL – for which the search giant paid $1 billion in 2003 – for a mere $283 million.

A decent investment is of course supposed to appreciate in value, perhaps to the tune of at least seven or eight percent a year. The $283 million price tag signals that an overall loss of 71.7 percent occurred, instead. Oops.

It also looks like another part of AOL’s relationship with Google is set to end, since an SEC filing stated, “[W]e have agreed to use Google’s algorithmic search and sponsored links on an exclusive basis in the United States through December 19, 2010. Upon expiration of this agreement, there can be no assurance that the agreement will be renewed, or, if the agreement is renewed, that we would receive the same or a higher revenue share as we do under the current agreement.”

Anyway, although AOL is now once again a fully owned subsidiary of Time Warner, this development clears the way for Time Warner to spin off the brand.

Time Warner’s stock is down about 0.25 percent so far this morning, which puts it only a little bit behind the Dow and the Nasdaq.

source: www.webpronews.com/topnews

Small Business Online, Small Business » Financial

New Trend Tracking Feature in Google Finance

Time Warner Reclaims Google’s Stake In AOL