Alphabet IncGOOGWAITDec 19, 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.
You have to own the Mag 7, especially if trading at a reasonable price. Top priority is AI spending and driving cost efficiencies. Q3 beat on top and bottom. Trying to maintain dominance in Search advertising. Sees 12% EPS growth from 2024-26.
But trading at a higher multiple of 19x 2026 earnings. PEG is high, but not obscene for a quality name. Way better than COST or HD. You could buy here and still make money, but he'd rather buy cheaper. Try to get it around 15-16x PE, ~$178. January will probably see a regression to the mean.