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Alphabet IncGOOGCOMMENTApr 17, 2023Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Aug 26, 2026. Market Open.
Revenue's grown 26% on average, per year, for the last decade. That's quite transformative. Subscriptions plus cloud are growing quickly. Valuation's quite attractive compared to historical comparisons. Attractive entry level at 16.7x forward PE. Small yield of 0.26%.
(Analysts’ price target is $428.18)That was an eye-opener. The Mag 7 has peaked, and it could be a multi-year peak due to the negative free cash flow. GOOG is one of the winners in AI. Once the PE declines or AI spending slows, the stock could react better. The street would be very disappointed if only the core businesses of the Mag 7 were generating free cash flow growth and AI was not. It's tough to look through AI spend and invest the Mag 7 which remain great companies, but now face the biggest risk in years.
He trimmed a little early this year, but likes it. Their relationship with the customer is strong across its platform. Secondly, growth is remarkable. Also, the valuation is reasonable. Their AI model is not the best, but it's competitive. Can you keep your eyeballs on a Google product? Yes. Gemini is integrated in their search, so that removes the threat to their search.
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.
GOOG faces an existential crisis: Are reports that Samsung will ditch Google and use Bing instead. Also, GOOG faces anti-trust threats from regulators over the digital ad market. Alphabet has invested money in various bets that aren't going anywhere, like Fitbit or Waymo. But if search revenues are split with Bing, that will impact Alphabet hard; search is their core business.