OT: Google's New Search Result Page

Ooooo I hate the look. What is the point of trying to look like Yahoo's search result page?? See it for yourself. The top is Google's supposedly new and improved search result page. The bottom is Yahoo's search result page, which has been this design more or less for some time.

Three columns, with the left column dedicated to navigation buttons, the center column showing the search results, the right column an ad space.



No wonder Google's shares have been on the decline, which started long before the May 6 market near-meltdown. If the company's idea of new design is to mimic the look of its far lesser rival, I would start to worry if I was an investor. They don't even offer an option for the users to switch back to the previous look.

Google may be losing the edge quite rapidly, in fact. Their online applications are increasingly buggy, features are not added but subtracted (like Google Map's "Terrain" feature). They seem to have some indigestion problem of integrating companies and technologies that they have acquired (like Blogger). As I posted a few weeks ago, GOOG's chart resembles MSFT's chart.

Silicon Valley vs the Rest of the US

Or tech vs traditional. Or companies that continue to innovate vs companies that don't. I don't know how exactly to define it, but take a look at the comparison charts below. (They are 5-year charts.)


The first four are the tech companies, three in the Valley, one up in Washington. Netflix (NFLX) broke to all-time high today. Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Apple (AAPL), and Amazon (AMZN) continue to break out from the high. Their charts say it all: Recession? What recession? Also notice that, except for ISRG, their recent bottom was NOT March 2009. They bottomed sooner than the rest of the market, and off to the races ever since...

Compare them to the rest. First two of "the rest" are tech companies, Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Even though they have recovered from their lows, they don't compare at all with the first four. (That tells me, unfortunately, GOOG has already become MSFT...) Rather, they resemble big, traditional businesses that are listed in New York Stock Exchange, rather than on Nasdaq. Their charts look more like J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) or Coca Cola (KO). The last one is Freeport McMoran (FCX), a copper and gold company. Although it has recovered a lot, it is still far from recapturing the all-time high.

They (NFLX, ISRG, AAPL, AMZN, etc) are clearly in a bull market, disregarding the rest. In a bull market, you buy a breakout from the high. That's what I learned in the book by William O'Neil (How To Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, 3rd Edition).

I am not advocating anything, going long or short, here. Do your own DD, but I sure wish I bought every single breakout from the high for these stocks.