Rumors affect Google
By Asha

Footnoted, which only reports on company filings made to the US Government, has just published details of how Google,  for the first time, has told SEC that market chatter and rumors may affect its share price

“
Is Google really afraid of rumors?…

Risk factors in SEC filings often seem like boilerplate that the attorneys throw in to cover every conceivable possibility of things that could go wrong.  One of these days, we wouldn’t be surprised to find a risk factor that says something along the lines of “Our CFO may catch the flu from his Aunt Edna, which could then spread to the rest of the executive team and cause them to miss a week of work.”  (Okay, that’s an exaggeration – we would be a little surprised to read that one.)

One of the disclosures that jumped out at us after reading Google’s 10-Q that was filed last week, was this interesting new risk factor in the laundry-list of risks related to the volatility of Google’s stock:

“Commentary by industry and market professionals about our products, strategies, and other matters affecting our business and results, regardless of its accuracy.”

Whoa, we thought. Were folks at Google really concerned that Internet chatter could have an impact on the company’s stock price? Given Google’s sheer size, it’s hard to imagine what kind of rumor — either negative or positive — would move the stock dramatically enough in one direction or another that it was worth including as a risk factor.
“