During regular trading hours today, Google’s stock was down a little over $2 a share, or about half a percent. Ho-hum, nothing big, probably just some investors worried they might mildly disappoint once again this quarter. Instead, Google blew away estimates for Q3 and as a result, the stock has now surged about $50 a share in after-hours trading.
While it ended the day around $540 a share, the stock is now approaching $600 a share after the nearly 10 percent jump in price. This surge means that Google has added over $15 billion to their market cap just now. While Google had fallen over $100 billion in market cap behind Apple, which continues to see their stock surge (it’s now past $300 a share for the first time ever), they’re now approaching a $200 billion market valuation themselves.
It’s also worth noting that Google, like Apple a few months ago, is now in striking range of Microsoft when it comes to market cap. Microsoft now stands at $218 billion — about $60 billion behind Apple at this point — and they don’t report earnings for another two weeks. Might Google rally to catch them as well?