Posted 9:41 PM by Gene

How do you parse something like this?

Sales growth at Mountain View, California-based Google slowed to 58 percent in the second quarter from 77 percent a year earlier.

Well, see, the sales growth is slowing, but in relative terms the company is selling more than before, so even as sales growth continues to slow the amount it sells will still continue to grow, therefore the company continues to get bigger, therefore it is worth $4,000 a share.

``It's heavily dependent on a particular segment of the business to make money,'' said Kevin Landis, who manages $700 million as chief investment officer of Firsthand Capital Management in San Jose, California. He said he hasn't added to his Google holdings since early last year in part because of the company's reliance on search-related ads. ``It's scary if that ever started to go wrong.''

Who says things will ever go wrong?

Yes, in Wall Street they use incense and beads.