Deal Stocks and the broader market have Google Inc.'s first-quarter performance to thank for the bullish trading on Friday. After the close of market on Thursday, the soon-to-take-over-the-world search engine announced a 42% first-quarter sales gain to $5.19 billion, beating analyst expectations. The top-line gain drove a 30% net income increase to about $1.31 billion. The result on the street: a 19.99% gain in Google's stock on Friday to close at $539.41 and a Dow Jones Industrial Average gain of 228.87 points to 12,849.36 as investors felt a sense of relief following earlier fears that blue-chip companies would not meet earnings forecasts.
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Troubled home lender Countrywide Financial Corp. was not so troubled Friday, as its shares increased 6.97% to $5.68. Activist investor SRM Global Master Fund in a Wednesday regulatory filing reported it increased its Countrywide stake to 8.13% from a prior 5.48%. When SRM first announced an active 5.19% stake on Jan. 31, the hedge fund argued that Bank of America Corp.'s pending acquisition in which it would pay Countrywide shareholders 0.1822 of each BofA share in exchange for each Countrywide share undervalued the lender's book value. News of the boosted stake came as an April 22 Federal Reserve Bank public hearing on the merger nears.
Cumulus Media Inc. also rode the market highs Friday, climbing 7.33% to close at $6.15 per share. The latest on Cumulus' slow moving deal to be acquired for $1.3 billion by the private equity arm of Merrill Lynch & Co. is that the radio broadcaster in mid-March gained approval to amend its credit agreement to ease the deal's closing. - Michael Rudnick
