Jim Cramer marveled Tuesday at the turnaround Google's stock has managed in just 12 months.
Last week, after the tech company posted third-quarter results that beat forecasts, its shares gained 13.8 percent in a single session to clear the $1,000 mark for the first time. Google's future looked somewhat bleak a year ago, though, the "Mad Money" host said.
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Last year, Google reported that its third-quarter website revenue—its core business—had missed dramatically. In fact, growth had slowed from 40 percent to just 15 percent year-over-year. The margins were getting crushed, too. The cost-per-click, a critical metric that tells how much advertisers are paying for each click, fell 15 percent in the period.
But last week Google management showed how they'd answered all the worries and objections, Cramer said. Its website revenue grew the fastest it had since first-quarter 2012, up 21 percent year-over-year.
YouTube-branded video ads grew 75 percent, with 40 percent of traffic coming from mobile, versus just 6 percent two years ago.
To Cramer, that's why Google is "best of breed."
"When a young, smart company with lots of cash and a dominant franchise stumbles, like Google did a year ago, you shouldn't be so quick to abandon ship," he said. "If you bought Google into the selloff one year ago, you've now got a 44 percent gain, and even after this epic run, I still believe Google's worth buying up here. It's just too good to ignore."
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