HEXUS.sharewatch: Google falls as China pull-out looms

Google's veneer of omnipotence has taken a bit of a knock in recent weeks. Many of its recent launches have been met with a luke-warm response, with sales of the Nexus One especially disappointing. Meanwhile, on the legal front it's coming under pressure from both antitrust authorities and US media giant Viacom.

But the issue that's likely to affect Google's bottom line, and thus share price, the most is whether or not it can continue to do business in China. A week ago, the FT reported that Google was almost certain to pull out of China after it decided to stop censoring search results, as required by the Chinese government. The FT's sources are now predicting that could happen as soon as today.

It's testament to the strength of Google's core business that all these challenges haven't had more of an effect on its share price, but in a week when most of our shares went up a tad, Google was the biggest faller.

There were contrastingly good weeks for the two chip giants: Intel - which launched its latest server chips - and Qualcomm - which has seen its share price drop a fair bit this year, and is now beginning to be looked at as a bit of a bargain.