Alphabet IncGOOGBUYMay 23, 2025Stock 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.
Sometimes ensnared in unfavourable headlines. Will probably prevail in US court cases. In his momentum mandate, continues to like and buy. Dominant player in digital advertising through Search, which makes up 70-75% of revenues. Really likes the cloud business (we may be in middle innings of cloud hosting). Lots of "other bets" that could pay off spectacularly.
Fears that ChatGPT and Perplexity could dislocate them in Search, but Gemini is being wired into the Search functionality and adding value to Search. Behaviour entrenchment in Search will be hard to dislocate. Remember that we use the word "google" as a verb now, which speaks to 25 years of habit-forming consumer behaviour. Will maintain its dominant position as long as it keeps investing in R&D and upping its game.