Google shares have risen since its earnings report in January and according to some forecasts, Google is set to become the first ever publicly traded company in the U.S. to hit $1Trillion in terms of market capitalization by 2020. However, there are some concerns regarding the company’s expected performance in 2015.
Here are some of them:
- US search share in January fell below 75% for the first time
- Net margins in 2014 dropped to 21.10% from 24.04% in 2013
- The stock has underperformed in recent years
- Competition with Yahoo and Bing is becoming more intense
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced on February 13 that they are about to offload millions of shares that will net them $4.5B in cash. Generally speaking, when insiders sell shares this is seen as a negative sign for the stock price of a company. The founders are reported to have said they are doing this for personal diversification reasons.