SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday amid renewed confidence in the company’s ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile device market.
The milestone comes more than five years after Google’s shares initially barreled through $700. Not long after breaking that barrier in October 2007, the economy collapsed into the worst recession since World War II and Google’s stock tumbled into a prolonged malaise that eventually led to a change in leadership.
Besides enriching Google’s employees and other shareholders, the company’s resurgent stock is an implicit endorsement of co-founder Larry Page. He replaced his managerial mentor, Eric Schmidt, as chief executive officer in April 2011. Google’s stock has risen by about 35 percent since Page took over.
By contrast, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed by 15 percent over the same stretch. Most of Google’s gains have occurred in the past seven months.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.