In Praise of Cojones

A hat tip to Mark Mahaney and other Google bulls who stuck their necks out this morning and reiterated $500 price targets--targets that looked me-too and ho-hum a month ago and now look mouth-watering.  Safa Rashtchy ($600) was out there banging the drum last week.

Because these are the times that actual investors live for: Panics and pile-ons in which, fundamentally, not much has changed, but, psychologically, everything has changed.  If one liked it then, one should love it now, etc.  Mark and Safa might well be proven wrong, but at least they won't have let a shift in sentiment weaken their knees.

UPDATE: At least one reader read this post as sarcasm.  I was actually being serious.  Good for Mark, Safa, and others for staying aboard when others are panicking.  Of course, there's always the risk that they go down with the ship.

Comments

[bronxite]

You should go easy on these people. It's likely that their employers are competing for future IB deals with Google. If they behave in a semi-rational fashion, they will get fired.

[Bjorn]

I read it as sarcasm as well. How could they have a $500 price target after the stock slid, what, a hundred dollars?

[Henry Blodget]

It's no different than having a $50 target on a $35 stock. And unlike a $500 target when the stock was trading at $475, a $500 target now provides enough return to offset the risk (Assuming, of course, one is comfortable with the underlying logic).