By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc shares set an all-time high on Monday, with the Web giant's reliable advertising business back in vogue among Wall Street investors disenchanted with younger social media companies.
The stock reached $747.84 around noon eastern time (1600 GMT), inching past a previous all-time high set in November 2007 of $747.24. The shares traded below $300 in 2009 during the global economic crisis and remained under pressure in the ensuing years as investors worried that Google's best years were behind it.
Now, the world's No.1 search engine, which generated $38 billion in revenue last year, looks increasingly attractive compared with a new crop of social Web companies, analysts say.
Facebook Inc, as well as once-hot companies Zynga Inc and Groupon Inc, came to the public markets amid sky-high expectations during the past year, but have fallen out of favor on concerns about their future business prospects.
"The markets have to come to appreciate that Google's been making money hand over fist all this time," said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group.
Google's lucrative search advertising business, as well as its efforts expanding into display and mobile advertising, have helped the company maintain robust revenue growth.
By contrast, Wieser said, Facebook has much more uncertainty. "It's so new that there's a lack of data points for anyone to point to."
(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic and Gerry Shih; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
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