The Google freefall hit a notable mark today: its shares are trading lower than where they ended 2006. Shares slid as low as $435.78, but closed today at $444.60. That's down by a third since November; the company's market cap has dropped during that time to $140 billion from $232 billion.
Give Intel some of the blame. The chipmaker lowered its Q1 profit margin forecast, and when Intel does that it drags the whole tech sector down. There was also news today that one of Google's top sales execs is jumping ship for social-networking darling Facebook.
But bigger issues are felling Google -- concerns about slowing revenue and profit growth, and about the economy affecting Google's paid click business. A report out last week by research firm ComScore showed a 7% drop in the number of times people clicked on Google's advertising links in January. The number of paid clicks per Google search query fell by 8%.
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