RIGHT ABOUT NOW,

Google

I kid, of course. We'll leave the unscripted comments to Google's finance chief, George Reyes, who with a few choice sentences Tuesday managed to knock off $8 billion from the online advertising machine's market capitalization.

For the handful of people who didn't hear every detail about Google's gaffe, I'll recap: Reyes told a Merrill Lynch conference audience the company's growth would slow. A quote: "Clearly our growth rates are slowing. We are going to have to find new ways to monetize the business." Shocking!

Exactly who out there thought Google's growth wouldn't slow? Did anyone really expect the company to defy the law of large numbers and become the first to grow at a screamingly fast pace indefinitely? Please. Google is a giant, enormously successful company that simply can't maintain its insane growth rate. And it's no different than any other giant, enormously successful company that tech investors have been enamored with over the years. Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel all of them ultimately saw growth rates taper off. Google is no different.

So this was the big news: Google isn't immune to the types of growth constraints that other earth-based companies face.

Now, was the timing of the comments odd? Seeing as how they were made two days before Thursday's analyst meeting, I'd say yes. For a company that's always disclosed to its own drum beat, revealing next to nothing in terms of growth or guidance, Reyes's off-the-cuff remarks are somewhat bizarre. After Google underestimated its tax hit last quarter, missed expectations and saw its stock roundly punished as a result, you'd think management would understand that some clarity is required. Is this Google's idea of clarity? One would wonder, considering the company's statement to "clarify" was basically a reiteration of the CFO's comments.

Following the 7% spanking that Google shares received on Tuesday, analysts dutifully supported the stock en masse on Wednesday. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone on Wall Street who thought Reyes's comments were a real ratcheting down of growth expectations. That might be chief financial officers are human too, after all but it doesn't change the fact that Google needs to be a bit more forthcoming with the details of its business. That's not something it's really had to do until now. When you're riding the fattest, most profitable growth wave in modern corporate history, folks tend to not need too many specifics to justify their investment. But the minute that momentum wanes, investors demand more information.

Which brings me to Google's analyst day on Thursday. I doubt this will be the same cheer fest enjoyed by the company last year. Analysts will be listening for additional details on overall growth expectations, as well as how management plans to transform its various projects outside of search advertising into money makers. There's also the matter of the company's international expansion, expense control and what it aims to do with that $8 billion hoard of cash and marketable securities.

Plenty of questions loom, which have sapped Google shares of late. After more than doubling last year, the stock is down 13% year-to-date. Sure, some of that is a pullback from 2005's amazing return, but it's also worth noting that analysts' earnings estimates for the current quarter and year have eased slightly in the last four weeks, according to Zacks Investment Research. After Tuesday's selloff, Google shares still trade at lofty price/earnings multiple of 42, compared with the Standard & Poor's 500's 16.

Thing is, absent crazy momentum, fat multiples require expectations to keep them inflated. Google's going to have to work on that.