Alphabet IncGOOGHOLDJun 06, 2023Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 10, 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.
Alphabet is known for pouring significant capital into R&D, so they will likely master ChatGPT and even make further inroads in AI, but the market will need to wait. In the meantime, the numbers have been mixed at Alphabet, with GOOG missing three of its last four quarters. Its PE has returned to early-2021 levels at 27.55x (vs. 20.27x a year ago) as shares have climbed 40% so far this year, an increase on par with Apple and Microsoft. A recession would dampen Alphabet’s digital ad business, but the company is sitting on a pile of cash and carries no debt. Nice buffer. Long-term, this is solid company. Read Top 3 AI Stocks for our full analysis.