Alphabet IncGOOGTOP PICKOct 10, 2024Stock 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.
DOJ is looking at possibly of breaking it up, but it was just a passing comment as a potential remedy. It would be years away, with legal appeals along the way. Looking back to 1980 when a monopoly company (AT&T) was broken up, it benefited shareholders. Most research shows that people will still prefer the Google search engine. Stock's back up today.
(Analysts’ price target is $203.40)Down 16% from recent highs. 1.4x PEG ratio, pretty cheap. Search has 90% market share right now. YouTube and Google Cloud continue to grow quickly. Yield is 0.49%.