You hang out with bad neighbors and you get slammed.

Motorola Mobility Holdings

Apparently, Motorola Mobility Holdings – which Google is set to acquire for $12.5B – announced worse than expected financial results.

We know how it works.  Shoot first, ask questions later.  Apparently Google’s stock price is reflecting Motorola’s results.

Revenue was up 33% versus the same period last year – closing in on the $10B mark for the quarter.

Lot of emphasis on mobile.

CEO Larry Page said that the total number of Android devices activated worldwide is 190 million (and growing).

As you might expect, GOOG stock price has responded favorably, up over $32 (5.80%) as of this writing to $591.

As I type, the stock is up 12.08% +63.90 to 592.84.

We could get into the financial side of stuff, but lets talk about Google+.  Yes, that’s Google with a plus sign.

Google’s making a big push to be more social.  Or at least get you to spend more time with Google then with Facebook.

While I haven’t involved myself with Google+, a number of people I know have reporting that some of the Google+ features are an improvement over what Facebook offers.  In particular, the “circle” ability for your friends.  You can create groups, i.e. – circles, of friends.  Something you can’t readily do with Facebook.  Do you really want to tell all of your friends (which might include your dear old grandmother) about your drunken debauchery last night.  I didn’t think so.  Google+ lets you communicate that type of sensitive information to the group of friends that you want to.  Sorry Facebook.

If Google can get you to stay more on their site(s) and less time of that other site, I would expect that to impact the bottom line.

Google+ still has a big hurdle … until my wife mentions Google+ I think Facebook will rule the social wave.

Google stock price is down $40 as of this writing to $538.13.  Google announced earnings of $8.08 per share.  In the fickle world of the stock market missing the $8.11 for a high flying stock like Google can be the kiss of death (see today’s stock price for proof).

Who cares if revenue is up 17% versus the same time period last year or that heavy spending on new hires occurred.

Google’s earnings report mentions revenue at $7.29B.  And in case they ever want to buy something, they have 33.4B in case or equivalents available.

The market has reacted favorably to the news, sending the price up my more than 10% from yesterday’s closing price.

That’s right, Google earnings estimates was $6.52 versus actual at $6.45.  Ouch.

It will be interesting to see if GOOG can close higher than today’s opening of $469.12.  Maybe, just maybe, this will be a slight blip in the cent rally from the early July lows.

Lower term, the stock price has lost a lot of momentum.  The stock recently peaked out around $600 / share near USA tax day, 15 April.  Even the once rising 200 day moving average (~$540) has started to roll over to the downside.

Guess that’s what is happening to GOOG in after hours trading.  The stock was up $6.30 during the regular trading day … and down $27.02 in after hours trading as of this writing.

Reading the news, sounds like investors are leery of Google’s increase in spending, notably adding almost 800 employees during the quarter.

For those that care about the facts, quarterly revenue was up about 23% to 6.78B, earnings came in at ~$2B (~$6.06 / share).  That puts the PE ratio at a lofty 94.

This is a far cry from a year ago when the stock price sunk to lows in the $250 range. Now the stock is teetering on the brink of breaking $600 – again to the upside.

It will be interesting to see what happens when (not if) $600 is broken.

Are we in for good times?

While the stock and the overall market has performed relatively well since last fall’s low, the overall move up has lacked … shall we say, a little “ummhh”.

The rally off of the low looks more corrective in nature than anything else. The rallies and declines are overlapping with no decisive breaks to the upside or downside. Still, the price movement is favorable for building a base to higher prices. At the very least, it looks like the downside momentum has slowed.

The 38% Fibonacci retracement is near the $437 mark – a price Google is not far from. A price – on a closing basis – that corresponds with the support of March 2008.

The stock is above the rising 50 day moving average AND the descending 200 day moving average. If GOOG keeps this up for awhile longer (or at least maintains the current price level), then its good times ahead.

Maybe.

Or maybe not. The stock is well off its all time high near $750. Expect resistance near $410 as this previously represented support back in March 2008.

To be perfectly honest, this rally looks like a corrective up wave in a downtrend. Look at the price thrusts up – the previous up was about $130, the current previous up is closing in on the $130 mark.