Alphabet IncGOOGPARTIAL BUYNov 20, 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 talking of splitting out Chrome. One of his top 5 holdings. Not as volatile as some of the other Mag 7's. Makes $$ on the ads, not especially on the Search. And the advertisers love going to GOOG, not to competitors like Perplexity or Bluesky. Plus, has all kinds of other horses in the race such as cloud and Other Bets. Waymo will become very important with the Trump Bump, Musk, EVs, and autonomous driving.
12-month price target of $200.25, still room to go. Buy some here at $175, and some more around $170.