Talk about fireworks. Google (GOOG, $465.25, up $1.96) came out like a rocket this morning after the debut of its Internet Chrome browser only to fizzle at the end. The stock was up 19 and change to $482 within the first 30 minutes of trading and briefly traded below Friday’s closing price of $463.29 before finishing the session slightly higher.
The four-year development of Chrome finally came to fruition today as the company takes direct aim at Microsoft’s (MSFT, $27.10, down $0.19) Internet Explorer. Folks, it doesn’t get any bigger than this. Simply put, the risk and rewards are that great for Google.
Microsoft currently controls a little over 70% of the Internet browser market. Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s (AAPL, $166.19, down $3.34) Safari fight for the rest of the market share which are the only real two competitors Microsoft has. Until now.
Of course Google claims Chrome is simplier and faster and is not only trying to get you to use it but to sign up for new services. The web based service market is expected to grow big-time by 2011 and Google wants in. And here’s a little gas for the fire. Eric Schmidt, who is Google’s CEO, once worked for Novell (NOVL, $6.40, down $0.03) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA, $9.00, unchanged). He was in charge of Java, Sun’s platform-independent programming technology, which never had much success taking on Microsoft. So the two companies he has worked for have been thwarted by Microsoft in the past. You get the picture (sly grin).
I’m not sure how successful Chrome will be and only time will tell if this will be a major victory for Google or another side distraction. The euphoria sure wore off as the day progressed. Once again, this is why “most” of the time you shouldn’t buy options at the open. (I say “most” of the time because I did profile some McDonald’s call options this morning). The Google September 500 calls (GOPIO, $3.70, up $0.40) opened at $6.00 this morning and traded as high as $7.00 before closing substanially lower. Imagine buying into the hype at $7.00 only to lose 50% of your cash by the end of the trading day.
Meanwhile, if you had bought the Google September 450 puts (GOPUJ, $8.50, down $0.37) shortly after the market opened, you could have bought these puts at $4.00 or $5.00 and doubled your money by the end of the day. Oops. I just told you how Wall Street works again. Shame on me. But seriously, both of these trades were risky and this is how a lot of individual investors lose their money and get frustrated with options.
Google has basically been below $500 a share since it disappointed Wall Street with its earnings back in July. The stock had a nice run in mid-August to $510 but is still trading below all of it major moving averages (i.e, 20, 50, 100 and 200-day). It shows the market is being risk-adverse when it comes to Google. There will be a time when the stars are aligned just right for us to go long or short Google but right now is not that time.
Rick Rouse
Rick@OptionsMentoring.com
