So shares of Google are tickling the underbelly of $600. Big deal. Wait 'til next year, when trading puts a seven in front of those double-zeroes.

Bear Stearns Bullish, Says GOOG To $700

Optimism blossoms, like the blade of grass pushing its way through a downtown city sidewalk. Even with a real estate bubble beginning to show signs of pushing against online advertising, (though you wouldn't know it from the IAB figures), hope grows in the hearts of stock traders when the name of Google is mentioned.

Bear Stearns has what Robert Plant would call a "Whole Lotta Love" for Google, especially its prospects through 2008. As Barron's Eric Savitz noted, that investment bank has a substantial target for GOOG:

Bear Stearns Internet analyst Robert Peck today set a $700 target on Google (GOOG) for year-end 2008, and raised his earnings estimates for the Internet giant. "Google remains one of the best operating companies within our coverage universe, with EBITDA and EPS growth estimated at 21% and 20%, respectively, over the next three-to-five years," he wrote in a research note today.

"Google continues to gain market in search queries while continuing to face a bevy of competitors…Further, Google’s efforts in online video, radio and print have added a layer of value that is absent from its competitor’s portfolio of offering and which has the potential to yield significant financial rewards."

Yahoo could quibble with this, with respect to the print side cited by Peck. Through a series of deals with newspaper publishers, Yahoo has secured a number of partnerships to provide online job classifieds for papers, with staffs at those papers serving as the salesforce for HotJobs.

Google, Bear Stearns