Individuals who have invested in Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo might want to lower their expectations.  Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its price targets on the companies' stocks today, with Google by far bearing the worst of it.

Now, instead of $685, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has taken the position that Google will just hit $630.  That's a drop of more than eight percent, which is a very serious amount.  It wouldn't be surprising if some shareholders bail as a result.

Google's trading at around $485 at the moment, though, so the new price target still allows for a lot of growth, at least.

As for the forecasts concerning the other companies, they were all trimmed more than slashed.  Yahoo's now supposed to hit $20 instead of $21 (which works out to a cut of 4.8 percent).  eBay's expected to reach $27 instead of $28 (3.6 percent).  And Amazon's meant to arrive at $150 instead of $155 (3.2 percent).

Finally, one other piece of possibly-encouraging news is that Bank of America Merrill Lynch hasn't quite turned on these companies in particular.  Rather, according to Reuters, "There is significant earnings uncertainty due to foreign exchange headwind, sluggish (economic) recovery and the sovereign debt crisis, analyst Justin Post wrote in a note."