Google stock rains on the tech rally parade

The stock market had a good day today. The tech-heavy Nasdaq continued its climb back towards 1,500, ending the day up 87.67 points (6.33 percent) to close at 1,472.02. Looking at various tech stocks, it looks like most had very nice gains today, but one notable one did not: Google.

Google’s stock continued its struggles, closing down 4.99 points, to close at 257.44 — continuing its move downward into closing prices not seen in over three years. A third of the company’s 20,000-some employees now have options that are underwater, meaning the current stock price is below what their options are set at, Silicon Alley Insider reported recently. With the continued slide in share price, the only thing rising is the number of employees with these underwater options.

Why did Google continue to fall today when nearly all of its competitors and counterparts in tech rose? It’s hard to say for sure. You could blame Bernstein Research cutting its price targets for Google, but it also did the same for Yahoo, Amazon and eBay — and each of those rose at least 6.5 percent today. News broke today that Apple was getting sued for patent infringement of the web browser used on the iPhone, and its stock still rose over 12 percent.

The more obvious thing to blame is the rumor of big layoffs (around 10,000) happening at Google. But it’s not yet clear if these cuts are really happening, and it seems highly unlikely it would be such a huge number. (We’ve inquired with Google about it and will update shortly.)

Update: Google gave a typical “no comment,” but it would seem likely that if layoffs are coming, it’d be closer to 1,000 and not 10,000.

Clicks of the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button within the Googleplex may be hitting an all-time low as well.