At the investment company I work for, their general approach to earnings is not to play them either way. Overall, I think this makes a lot of sense, because it often seems like a risky move to buy or sell a stock before it announces earnings in hope that it will move one way or the other.

So I really had to be sure before I spoke up on Wednesday’s stock meeting about Google. I should preface this by saying that even though I have been very happy with my portfolios (both real and paper) in the past year, and feel as though I have learned quite a lot in the past year and a half, I still am very nervous whenever I speak up at this meetings. Combined, these people have a century (or more) of knowledge about the stock market, bachelors and masters degrees in finance, and to top it all off are just extremely intelligent people. I think they invited me to this meeting last year both to encourage my interest in investments as well as get a “fresh” opinion on things - even if that opinion was based on a few months of investment experience.

Anyway, about a month ago, Google’s stock got hit when ComScore, who is kind of like the Nielsen ratings of the internet, announced that its growth from online advertising sales was slowing drastically. I immediately put 10% of my portfolio in the stock, for three reasons. First of all, ComScore is notoriously inaccurate. I had actually researched the stock last year as a possible investment, before reading too many stories about how their calls were often way off. Second, by spending a lot of time in the online advertisement industry, I can see first hand how Google’s online advertisements are continuing to grow.

Last, I feel as though Google is one of the best overall companies I have seen in my lifetime. It is well run, has a great business model, and puts out incredible products. I never got a chance to buy into Google last year, so I felt as though buying it nearly 375 points off it high was a great deal.

So at this meeting Wednesday, I said that I strongly felt that the next day, Google would beat earnings estimate and everyone who sold off in fear the month before would dive back in.

And, incredibly, I was right. Google opened this morning up 80 points, or nearly 20%.

I feel really, really good. I know that, like all investing, there was a good amount of luck in this. But I feel as though this was a great example of how you can really benefit from investing when you understand not only a company, but the company’s stock as well.

My only regret was not purchasing ten real-money shares on Wednesday like I was tempted to. If I had done that, I would have gained about $800 overnight.