Predicting another "banner year" for Google in 2006, Piper Jaffray Analyst Safa Rashtchy wrote in a research note issued Tuesday that the search giant would profit from a 41 percent growth in the
global search advertising market. Rashtchy also forecast that Google's stock would hit $600 a share by the end of the year. "Given the company's performance, market share gain, and the pipeline of new
products, we believe outperformance is still very likely," Rashtchy wrote. "Google is our top large-cap stock pick for 2006 because it is singularly well positioned to benefit from the growth of
online advertisement and search." The note described Google as an "iconic company" which has set the rules in the search and online advertising spaces. Rashtchy added that Piper Jaffray expects that
Google will grow revenue by 52 percent this year--while Yahoo!, eBay, and Amazon will grow only 27 percent, 34 percent, and 19 percent, respectively.
-- Shankar Gupta
