• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 26, 2004

Just two months after it began trading public shares Google has surpassed Yahoo! as the Internet's biggest player on Wall Street. Based on Monday's closing stock prices, Google now has a bigger stock market value than Yahoo! by about $3 billion.

Google's stock price closed Monday at $187.40 per share, giving it a market capitalization of $50.83 billion, according to Yahoo! Finance. Yahoo!'s stock price closed the day at $35.20 per share for a market cap of $47.89 billion.

Google's stock market value has risen 87 percent since it's shares closed at $100.34 on Aug. 19, it's first day of trading. The company's shares of rallied in the past few days due to an especially strong third quarter earnings report and a strong outlook. Google has also demonstrated strong diversification plans, including a new desktop search application that has some investors envisioning a bigger play for the Internet search company.

Yahoo!'s shares have held steady in recent months, but have shown nowhere near the explosive growth. However, Yahoo!'s stock market value has grown considerably more than Google's since Yahoo! first began trading publicly on April 12, 1996. It closed its first day of trading at $1.38 per share.

Stock Price, Market Capitalization

                                Yahoo!           Google 
Stock Price^
$35.20          $187.40 
Market Capitalization   $47.89 billion   $50.83 billion 

Source: Yahoo! Finance. *Monday's close.