Alphabet IncGOOGTOP PICKFeb 06, 2023Stock 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.
It is very very big and therefore hard to move the needle, but there are a lot of initiatives the company can do such as pricing, launching new services and getting into AI. The advertising component is cyclical and is the easiest place for companies to cut spending. There are one billion searches a day on Google and its YouTube is the most dominant platform around. It is trading at a decent valuation of 20X earnings, has an excellent balance sheet, and is buying back $60 billion worth of stock this year. Now focusing on cost cutting so be patient.
(Analysts’ price target is $129.20)Buy 11 Hold 0 Sell 0