The Gurus and Google

Now that Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is trading above $800 per share and it's up 31% in the first quarter of 2013, here’s an update on Google’s performance and a look at the Gurus trading as found on GuruFocus Real Time Picks. Up 45% over 12 months, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has a market cap of $288.24 billion, and a P/E of 25.80. It currently trades at $877.53 per share.

Google Inc. reported consolidated revenues of $13.97 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, an increase of 31% compared to the first quarter of 2012. Google Inc. reported advertising revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the first quarter of 2013, TAC totaled $2.96 billion, or 25% of advertising revenues, according to the company.

"We had a very strong start to 2013, with $14.0 billion in revenue, up 31% year-on-year," said Larry Page, CEO of Google. "We are working hard and investing in our products that aim to improve billions of people's lives all around the world."

Using the GuruFocus interactive valuation chart, track GOOG’s valuation since August of 2004:

GOOG data by GuruFocus.com

There are numerous investor Gurus holding GOOG. Here are a few highlights.

PRIMECAP Management

The top Guru stakeholder of Google is PRIMECAP Management with about 3.2 million shares or 0.97 shares outstanding, 3.7% of its total assets managed. PRIMECAP’s trading history shows a bright green path of gains ever since it first bought in the second quarter of 2008 at the average price of $542.56 for a 61.7% gain. Overall, on about 1.8 million shares bought at the average price of $445.31 per share, PRIMECAP gained 97% on GOOG. On 306,974 shares sold at an average price of $604.62 per share, PRIMECAP made a gain of 45%.



Other Guru Shareholders

The second highest GOOG stakeholder is Guru Chris Davis who holds around 2.7 million shares, followed by Frank Sands with 2.4 million shares and Jeremy Grantham for a little over 2 million shares.

First-time GOOG buyers in first quarter 2013, Tom Gayner and Chuck Royce, bought 5,000 and 250 shares, respectively.

Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn was new to GOOG in the fourth quarter of 2012 when he bought a new holding of 63,000 GOOG shares at an average price of $699.77 for a 25.4% gain.

Recently three Gurus increased their positions with Google in the last quarter, as of March 31, 2013:

Dodge & Cox

Dodge & Cox increased its GOOG position same quarter by 39.09% Dodge & Cox bought 366,250 GOOG shares at an average price of $778.50 for a 12.7% gain. Overall, Dodge and Cox is average a 26% gain on around 1.3 million shares bought on average at $698.12 per share.



Manning & Napier Advisors

Manning & Napier Advisors increased its GOOG position by 8.38%, buying 47,835 shares at an average price of $778.50 per share for a 12.7% gain. The trading history shows that on buying a little more than 1.8 million shares at an average price of $478.03, Manning & Napier gained 84%. On selling 1.8 million shares at an average price of $551.06, they gained on average 59%.



Joho Capital

Joho Capital’s Robert Karr bought 9,000 shares, increasing his Google position by 3.23%. He now holds 0.09% of GOOG shares outstanding.

Since the second quarter of 2008, Karr’s trading history shows a 78% gain on 417,449 shares bought at an average price of $493.27 per share. He also gained 76% on 328,743 shares sold at an average share price of $498.90 per share. In the first quarter of 2013, Karr bought 9,000 more shares at $778.50 per share and made a 13.1% gain.

Here’s a detailed analysis of Gurus trading GOOG.

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The GuruFocus Real Time Picks feature reports the stock purchases and sales that Gurus have made within the prior 2 weeks. This feature is for Premium Members only.

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