The market showed remarkable restraint trading Google (GOOG) stock the day after it served up disappointing quarterly results.

Google stock hardly budged even after profits and sales missed estimates, paid clicks declined further and costs — once again — ballooned.

Maybe it’s because GOOG was already down more than 6% for the year-to-date heading into Thursday’s earnings release. Or maybe the market was in a forgiving mood in an otherwise big up day for equities.

Whatever the reason, Google stock responded by sliding by only 1% by midday Friday.

It would be nice to think the market had matured in its reactions. Yes, GOOG missed on analysts’ top- and bottom-line estimates, but then, Google doesn’t bother with guidance in the first place. Misses happen.

But that’s not how the market works.

Furthermore, it’s not a surprise that prices for advertising continue to fall (paid clicks have been a melting iceberg for years), or that Google continues to pour billions into building the business — even at the most recent and stupendous rate. Google hired another 3,000 people in the most recent quarter. Expenses rose 28% to $12.8 billion, led by a 46% increase in spending on research and development.

If there was a reason for the market to dump Google stock on Friday, it was on the top line. Paid clicks didn’t just fall, they tumbled. Growth came to 17% in the quarter, which sounds robust … but analysts were looking for 20%.

In either case, it’s a big deceleration from the 30% growth booked in recent quarters. And although revenue expanded 19%, that broke a string of quarterly sales growth of at least 20%.

In other words, if the market needed reasons to sell Google stock at the end of the week, the search giant gave it plenty.

Google Stock Resilience

The fortitude in GOOG stock following disappointing earnings gives a big lift to the bulls. If nothing else, the lack of weakness shown by Google stock shows that bullish sentiment is firmly on its side.

Partly that could be because investors think they’ll soon see the payoff from Google’s billion-dollar investments. As Credit Suisse analysts said in a client note:

“We view the decreased capex growth with ambivalence as we believe it is a bullish indicator of Google’s need to keep up with user demand, but investors will likely cheer what looks like the first sign of a potential harvest cycle.”

Meanwhile, Bank of America analysts pointed to stable U.S. revenue and Google Play gaining traction as big positives from the report.

Yes, tough year-over-year comparisons also played their part, but slower growth at Google also has something to do with the continued slowdown in online advertising and more competition from social networks like Facebook (FB).

Perhaps the market is saying that such worries are adequately discounted in Google stock. As mentioned, shares are lagging the broader market with a loss this year. Heck, this is the third time Google stock has hit current levels during the past year (once on the way up, twice on the way down.)

Google earnings and the market reaction really do affirm the bull case on GOOG, a stock which looks cheap by many measures.

You’ve got to feel comfortable with Google when it can give the market so many reasons to pound GOOG, and GOOG goes mostly unscathed anyway.

As of this writing, Dan Burrows did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.