Alphabet IncGOOGBUYJan 20, 2025Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 08, 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.
On average, they have cash, massive cash flow and good growth. On advantage the Mag 7 has is that they have the capacity to spend billions on R&D. GOOG, for example, spends $40B annually. Smaller companies just do not have this advantage. The group would likely grow faster if they were allowed to do acquisitions. They will be continue to be closely tied to the overall economy, and are not immune to declines (i.e 2022). But we think they have several years of growth, if not more, ahead of them.
Unlock Premium - Try 5i Free