Google's stock price surged to a nine-month high reflecting Wall Street's deepening admiration of the Internet search leader as it continues to make extraordinary growth look routine, an Associated Press report said.
The report said the Mountain View-based company's shares climbed as high as $460.10 before falling back slightly to close at $459.67, an increase of $33.61, or 7.9%, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The run-up created more than $10 billion in shareholder wealth and left Google's market value at $143 billion after eight years in business, the report said.
By comparison, 67-year-old HP, the world's largest technology company, has a market value of $108 billion.
The report said Google's stock had not been this expensive since the first half of January when the price reached its all-time high of $475.11.
Most industry analysts expected Google to smash through that barrier soon, estimating the shares' value at anywhere between $500 and $600, the report said.
Those lofty price targets looked more realistic after Google's third-quarter profit nearly doubled to $733 million, surprising even the most bullish analysts. Through the first nine months of the year, Google earned $2 billion on revenue of $7.4 billion, the report further said.