Alphabet IncGOOGPAST TOP PICKOct 31, 2018Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 13, 2026. Market Open.
Fears that AI would eat its lunch. Harder for Anthropic to monetize a new tool than for GOOG to take AI and apply it to a business model that it already monetizes. Muscle memory of the populace gravitates to GOOG to find information. Probably thrives in the new AI world, until something more disruptive comes along.
AI monetization is happening, and AI Mode has been a game changer. Stronger cloud growth (revenue grew 63% YOY last quarter, tremendous), broader monetization across platforms. Search and advertising remain strong, lots of cashflow. Also a great ecosystem.
Good growth, but relatively decent valuation. Yield is 0.25%.
A year ago, consensus was that Search was going to die. Seems ridiculous now. Gemini is overtaking ChatGPT. Data centre business is growing faster than before. Still not that expensive. He hasn't sold any shares yet, but may take some off the table from the long-term holding and put toward one of the Mag 7 laggards.
(A Top Pick Aug 29/17, Up 17%) A wild ride with these FANG stocks this year. Sometimes they trade on momentum, but eventually value shines through. Google had 35 straight quarters of 20%+ revenue growth at 20x earnings--name another company like that. Hopefully they clean up their office politics. Their investments in self-driving could be huge as well as the connected home. Their Google search and YouTube are crushing it.