Even more than the average individual, Google shareholders seem likely to wind up marking the end of the week by having a few drinks.  Google’s stock was below $500 when the closing bell rang today, and the stock actually hasn’t closed lower since October 5th of last year.

You can see the state of things for yourself below.  Google closed at $488.52 on October 5th; now, more than seven months later, it’s only a little bit higher at $493.13.  Not good.

Google’s supporters can’t point to a lot of other companies and argue Google’s caught up in a trend, either.  The same graph demonstrates that the Nasdaq’s performed better over the same period.

Otherwise, if we’re to look at a couple of rivals in terms of closing prices, Yahoo’s only at a two-and-a-half month low (it closed at $15.24 on February 25th and $15.29 today), and Microsoft’s in the same neighborhood (it closed at $27.93 on February 15th and $28.21 today).

Just eBay (which of course isn’t a director competitor) is worse off than Google, closing lower today than it has anytime since September 2nd of last year.

Hopefully next week will be a little kinder to everyone.