Searching for the King of Search: Google Inc (GOOG) and More

The Foolish bottom line

Google is certainly the Goliath of the search industry.  It carries a gigantic market value, and solid growth to back up its trailing P/E of 25.  Investors wary of allocating capital to Russian stocks may want to steer clear of Yandex, although its stock may have the most room to run, as it holds the smallest market capitalization of the three.

At these prices, Baidu looks to be the cheapest of the three, as it carries a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of just 18 times.  Despite reporting results that disappointed the markets, underlying growth remains strong and is expected to continue.  The harsh sell-off in Baidu shares seems overdone.  On the other end of the spectrum, Google continues to climb to new highs but still holds a relatively modest valuation.  Baidu and Google look to be the best bets among the search engines, based on higher growth rates and better valuations than Yandex.

The article Searching for the King of Search originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Robert Ciura.

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