In NASDAQ news, shares of Yandex NV ($16.24 * 0.47 +2.98%) were up some 4.41% to $16.47 in afternoon trading after Deutsche Bank released positive noted on the Russian Internet. The rush to buy subsided slighly by the close, with over 7 million shares traded. Yandex’s anti-trust case against search giant Google has spurred confidence in the Russian competitor, and especially in the European space.

On Thursday stock analysts at Deutsche Bank set a $21.00 target price on shares of Yandex NV, noting:

Yandex rated "strong buy" - courtesy Google Finance “We see the Russian antitrust investigation into Google (GOOGL) and an overall increasing government eye on the Internet space providing a potential catalyst to Yandex shares, which have been predominantly at the mercy of FX and macroeconomic forces of late. While the macro outlook for Russian GDP growth remains challenged, FX has stabilized, providing a key element necessary for the shares to bottom.”

With hearing set for April 13th, some analysts have rated Yandex a “strong buy” at targets between $18 and 21$ per share. The Russian Internet search company competes with the likes of Google, Bing, and China’s Baidu. Shares of Yandex were hot trading objects Friday, at the close 7,212,135 shares had been traded, up by a factor of 2x over the previous day’s trading. I covered the Google-EU anti-trust case upcoming earlier this week, and spoke with Yandex’s head of international PR, Vladmir Isaev briefly on the company’s position. Whether or not the Russian Internet company has a strong case, or not, it’s clear that Russia’s biggest search utility, has not intention of going away on the European or world stage of internet companies.

The whole case for Isaev’s company revolves around search and mobile, and what some say is Google’s Achilles heel. The short version is, “Google (Android) should not prevent manufacturers from pre-installing competitor apps.” The concept of “bundled” services overreaching competitive fairness is central to Yandex’s case. Google faces still challenges to its market share over allegations of monopolistic characteristics of the company. A Wall Street Journal revelation last week from the US FTC case against the Mountain View company revealed Google did leverage search results in the company’s favor. A revitalized EU case versus Google is in the offing now.

About the company:

Yandex N.V. (NASDAQ: YNDX) is an European Internet company and a search provider in Russia. Yandex offers search services in Russia and also serves Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Company’s search engine uses its algorithms to provide relevant results, which the Company structures and presents in an editorially neutral and user-friendly manner.