Tuesday, October 10, 2006

caution in front of the Google/YouTube buy

Yesterday morning (before jetting off to wine country in wonderfully beautiful Santa Ynez) I further trimmed my Google options position ahead of the expected purchase of YouTube. The purchase was announced this morning at the expected 1.6B. I figured that there would be some jitters about the deal. First, you have the dilutive effect factored into any buyout of a loss making company like YouTube. Second, as a shareholder of GOOG I am concerned about lawsuits over all of the copyrighted content there. Google has deep pockets and I can't imagine that certain content owners will just let this infringement slide.

So far trimming the position looks like the right thing to have done. Google shares are down about 1% today.

I will however be stepping back in on any weakness. The YouTube purchase is great for Google long term, especially because it prevents a key competitor (read: Yahoo) from getting the dominant player in the online video space.

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