Employees.

Google (GOOG) stock took a huge hit last week following its earnings call, dropping and incredible 47 points or 8.26% from closing the day before.  That's $15B in market cap and its biggest one day loss since the 2008 Bear market.

Google surpassed revenue expectations by a significant margin and missed consensus EPS by mere pennies, so why did the stock get hit so badly?

Cowan's Jim Friedland notes,

Google's Q1:11 revenues exceeded expectations. However, EBITDA and EPS were slightly below consensus estimates due to a previously announced ramp in headcount, a 10% salary increase, and a jump in marketing to acquire Chrome users and new advertisers.

Wall St. was expecting a 8.10-8.13 EPS number.  Google could only muster 8.08, which was less than 1% off.  $15 Billion in Market Cap gone.

What's going into this thinking? More