They should call him rocket man.
With Larry Page in the CEO seat, Google shares skyrocketed more than 13 percent on Friday to become only the second S&P 500 stock to break the $1,000 barrier.
Google, which is up more than 43 percent this year, surged $122.61, to close at $1,011.44, a day after the search giant reported blowout third-quarter results.
Page’s personal fortune shot up by $3 billion. The 40-year-old Google co-founder is now worth an estimated $28.3 billion, according to Forbes, making him the 20th-richest person on the planet.
Co-founder Sergey Brin, who holds slightly less stock, saw his net worth jump by $2.9 billion, to $27.7 billion, according to Forbes.
But Page will have to hit warp speed to catch up to Priceline.com and its popular pitchman, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner.
The travel-booking site was the first S&P 500 company to hit $1,000 over the summer. At $1,048.25, its stock price remains richer than Google’s.
Google’s third-quarter performance data, released after the closing bell on Thursday, convinced investors that the company can extend its digital ad dominance into mobile devices.
The search giant has been struggling with sagging ad prices as advertisers balked at paying the same rates for ads that appear on smartphones and tablets, despite growing views on mobile devices.
To offset the decline, Google announced a plan in February that forced marketers who buy ads on tablets to also buy ads on desktops. The new strategy doesn’t let advertisers buy mobile-only campaigns.
Google’s blockbuster results in the third quarter showed the new strategy has reignited revenue growth.
Last quarter’s boffo performance led more than a dozen Wall Street firms on Friday to raise their price targets on Google, including predictions for the stock to hit $1,220 a share by Credit Suisse and Sanford Bernstein. Deutsche Bank also raised its price target to $1,220 a share.
To put Google’s meteoric stock rise in perspective:
-It is only the fourth company on a major exchange to see its stock surpass the $1,000 mark, starting with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway’s class A shares, which closed Friday at $175,400 a share.
-Google added $41 billion to its value in the one-day surge, which is more than Yahoo’s entire $35.6 billion market cap.
- Gadget maker Apple still boasts the biggest market cap, at $462.33 billion. Google is worth $337.97 billion.
- Google is estimated to hold $33.2 billion in offshore tax havens and was recently called out by a parliamentary committee in the UK over tax avoidance.