Go Go Google: At $600 and Climbing

Googlemania is back. Did it ever go away?

As the tech juggernaut crests past $600 per share, and analysts -- disgraced and otherwise -- raise their price targets on the web search juggernaut, a familiar question returns: Just how can high can Google go?

Apparently high enough for one insider to cash out to the tune of $60 million. In one day.

Google director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 100,000 shares for $600 to $601.29 apiece on Monday, Google reported Tuesday in a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shiram, a self-described "sherpa" investor who sold his startup to Amazon during the last tech boom, is already worth $1.3 billion.

Monday's sale, while prearranged, indicates that at least one insider felt that $600 per share would be a good time to take a little money off the table.

Meanwhile, average investors are scrambling to buy up Google shares, despite the fact that they are over six times as expensive as they were when Google went public in 2004, for $85 per share.

Wall Street analysts are feeding the frenzy, reflexively raising their price targets as the company cruises past key milestones, in this case $600.

On Tuesday, analysts at both Banc of America and Lehman Brothers raised their price targets: Banc of America to $670 from $620, and Lehman Brothers to $714 from $610.

However, some voices of caution were audible.

UBS Internet analyst Ben Schachter -- known on the street as, if not a bear, a voice of reason -- was a little more circumspect about the Mountain View money-machine.

"We are cautious going into third quarter earnings," Schachter wrote in a note to clients, "given the recent run in the stock, already high expectations (on both revenues and margins), and limited visibility of the impact from monetization improvements."

Translation: Be careful.

One year ago, tech reporters thought bullish Google analysts were deranged for predicting the company would reach $600 per share. Today, what constitutes deranged has skyrocketed, to $2,000 per share.

One Wall Street analyst -- who spoke on condition of anonymity -- told Portfolio.com that when he tried to voice a note of caution about the stock, he got angry phone calls from people saying, "Don't ruin the party. Don't be a wet blanket."

He said that there is a herd mentality on Wall Street with respect to Google, "and no one wants to be the first person to downgrade the stock."

The analyst said the market is pricing in expectations for the Gphone, or some other mobile initiative, that is expected to be announced in two weeks at Google analyst day in Mountain View.

He said he was expecting the company to roll out a limited run of devices made by "one of the Taiwanese manufacturers." (When the phone is launched, other Google directors can call home and say, "Honey, I just made $60 million in one day.")

And the buying goes on. Google shares closed up 1.65 percent Wednesday to close at $625.

by Sam Gustin