Google’s employees couldn’t have timed the stock market’s turn any better. A day before stocks bottomed in March, Google let almost 16,000 of its workers exchange their stock options. It turned out to be the deal of a lifetime.

The average exercise price for the options held by non-executives was around $521 a share at that time. But Google’s shares were trading closer to $308 each, making the options all but worthless. So, Google repriced the options to where its stock closed on March 6.

Then something surprising happened. Like the broader market, Google’s shares began to soar. Now, the stock is around $590, and each option has a profit of roughly $280. That amounts to a potential windfall for employees at the Internet search company of more than $2 billion.

Could this be just luck, or is Google using all their users’ information to predict the stock market?




  1. Al Bundy says:

    How did they know? They googled “when will the market hit the bottom?” DUH!

  2. earlwallace says:

    Veery interesting. So unfair unless you are a google employee. Sheesh

  3. Father says:

    They used the GoogleTimeMachine ™, duh!

  4. brm says:

    Sky. Net.

  5. Lou says:

    Sounds like a horseshoe inserted in an asshole

  6. sargasso says:

    A demonstration of why the Google Cloud is presently unfavorable with corporate CIOs. This is Google’s weakness, the one obstacle it will never overcome, the one real thing that will severely limit it’s involvement with corporate and government computing services – distrust.

  7. AdmFubar says:

    hhmmm sounds like someone is ‘enroning’ the stock market..

  8. Dale says:

    They do hold all the information..

  9. Dr_Wally says:

    I used to come here for a wide range of interesting articles, most with some tech angle. Now it’s Cherman’s rightwing blog site. Too bad.

  10. brm says:

    #10:

    Leave, then.

  11. Jim says:

    … if it were true they knew something, they’d have changed up the options on the FIRST dip.

    But hey, conspiracy theorists have already written their answers down so they must be true.

  12. Fishgy says:

    What ever happened to “neural network” programs. They are (were?) algorithums and programs that made “decisions” based on past data and trends.

    You think Google is running them against their data base. Why wouldn’t they?

    This is all going to come to a head pretty soon.

  13. qb says:

    Chicken meet egg. Egg meet chicken.

  14. Micromike says:

    If they have figured out how to predict the market we would be fools not to buy their stock. Everybody could buy Google and we would all live well forever.

    Rainbow Stew, just like Merle Haggard said.

  15. jescott418 says:

    I still cannot believe Google’s stock is where its at? I wonder what the average value of a stock is? Somehow I am thinking Google’s stock will crash some day. This is a value for this kind of stock that’s not sustainable.

  16. soundwash says:

    The simple answer is one of the two CEO’s of Google, Eric Schmidt, was invited to the 2009 Bilderberg meeting. The information google aggregates is priceless. What top links show up in it’s searches even more so..

    IF, there ever is any investigation into this, i’m sure it will be “favourable” to google

    Listen to the lyrics in billy idol’s “Cyberpunk” album from the 80’s some day. One observation he made amongst many, was that “Information will be the currency and power of the new age.” Quite astute, don’t ya think?

    -s

  17. Lou Minatti says:

    Who says it’s the bottom?

  18. What stock(s) should I invest in right now if I had money that you had to buy stocks with ?

  19. Breetai says:

    Wow that does smell fishy. Right in line with comments John made about the subject. I wonder if they should be nervous?

    Nah… Money buys justice after all, and Google owns a whole lot of Justice.

  20. Michael Liggan says:

    The real story here is that Google enabled the windfall for their EMPLOYEES!


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