Heaps of articles such as the one below (see full article on...

Heaps of articles such as the one below (see full article on http://origin.mercurynews.com/google/ci_8969519?nclick_check=1) that will hopefully make Monday MCU's day.

Over the last few months, the market has not reacted rationally on this stock, but I can't imagine that the sp is not going to go up by at least 10%.

We will find out shortly.

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The slowing U.S. economy did not seem to slow down Google, which reported a surprisingly strong surge in first-quarter profit Thursday.

Google's net income jumped 31 percent to $1.31 billion and revenue swelled 42 percent to $5.19 billion compared with the same period last year.

The report trumped many Wall Street analysts, who had reduced their forecasts for Google's growth based on third-party research that suggested fewer people were clicking on Google ads.

"Google has completely silenced the cynics," said Jeffrey Lindsay, a senior analyst with Bernstein Research.

In a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Google was still not feeling the drag of the struggling U.S. economy. Google executives made similar statements in January.

"It's clear to us that we are well-positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment we find ourselves surrounded by," Schmidt said.

Google also put to rest any lingering concern about clicks, reporting that advertisers paid for 20 percent more of them during the first quarter of the year than they did during the same period in 2007. While this marked a significant slowdown from prior quarters, it was much more than the 1.8 percent growth calculated by the comScore research firm.

Based on the comScore report and other calculations, Wall Street analysts had expected Google to report net revenue of $3.59 billion and earnings of $4.52 a share. Instead, Google's net revenue was $3.7 billion and earnings were $4.84 a share.

The ace in Google's hand: international sales, which surpassed its U.S. sales for the first time. Revenue from outside the United States was $2.65 billion, or 51 percent of total revenue. The boom in international business helped Google lower its tax rate to 24 percent from last year's 25 percent to 27 percent.