Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) 02 (Aug 17 - Dec 25)

[winston]

not vested

Now Could Be a Great Time to Buy This Stock

by Brett Schafer

Compared to competitor Microsoft, Alphabet posted weak growth in its smaller cloud computing division.

Advertising growth is back.

Google Search revenue grew 11.3% year over year in the third quarter, hitting a staggering $44 billion in just three months.

Advertising at YouTube grew 12.4% year over year to $7.9 billion in the quarter.

YouTube Premium, YouTube Music and YouTube TV : The revenue earned from these offerings does not show up in the YouTube advertising segment on Alphabet’s income statement but in the “Google Other” category. The segment grew revenue 21% year over year to $8.33 billion — adding more than $1 billion in new quarterly revenue compared to 2022 — which indicates that YouTube’s overall revenue is growing quite quickly.

Operating margin was 28% in Q3, up from 25% in 2022.

Source: The Motley Fool

https://tradesoftheday.com/2023/10/31/n ... his-stock/

[winston]

not vested

Cathie Wood has a blunt warning for the future of Google's stock

Google currently makes money by using ads to deliver users to other websites.

Large language models like ChatGPT remove this route entirely, taking the information across all websites, synthesizing it and delivering it directly to users.

Deepwater's Gene Munster says, however, that once Google integrates Gemini into its flagship search engine, the "scale will tip back toward Google and we'll see a reacceleration."

The coming proliferation of AI, Douglas said, will likely erase any technical head starts Google has on the competition and further erode that vital consumer muscle memory.

"Google has enough momentum that they could not feel this for quite a while," he said. "But the main point is nobody has a head start on this stuff."

Source: The Street

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/go ... 7s%2Bstock

[winston]

not vested

This Stock Could Double Your Money in 2024

by Louis Navellier

Trading for 24 times forward earnings, GOOG continues to trade at a sharp discount to MSFT. MSFT has a forward earnings multiple of about 33.8.

Earnings per share for Alphabet could rise 16.35% in the coming year.

Alphabet could unveil some major news about its AI commercialization prospects in the year. ahead.

Source: InvestorPlace Research

https://tradesoftheday.com/2023/11/29/t ... y-in-2024/

[behappyalways]

Google Admits Gemini AI Promotional Video Was Fabricated
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/bl ... e-quackery

[behappyalways]

Google Loses On Every Count In Play Store Antitrust Case With Epic Games
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/go ... epic-games

[winston]

not vested

Google parent Alphabet ad revenue sputters, capex up; shares sink 6%

Holiday season advertising sales came in below expectations and the company said its spending on data centres to support its artificial intelligence (AI) plans would jump this year.

Ad revenue in the fourth quarter was US$65.5 billion, up from US$59.0 billion in the year ago quarter but short of the average analyst expectation for US$66.1 billion.

Source: Business Times

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compan ... res-sink-6

[winston]

not vested

Alphabet shares slid more than 6% in extended trading on Tuesday after the company reported ad revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.

Alphabet reported its fastest quarter for revenue growth since early 2022, with sales climbing 13% from $76.05 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

However, ad revenue of $65.52 billion trailed analyst estimates of $65.94 billion, according to StreetAccount.

YouTube, which has been helping to drive accelerated growth, came in just shy of expectations.

Google Cloud remains a growth engine, with 26% expansion in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago.

Net income jumped 52% in the fourth quarter to $20.7 billion, or $1.64 per share, from $13.6 billion, or $1.05 per share, a year earlier.

Source: Phillips

[winston]

not vested

GOOGLE inc. - Stock Analyst Research
Target Price* 154.00
Recommendation ACCUMULATE

Alphabet Inc. - AI underpinning ad growth

4Q23 results were within expectations. FY23 revenue/PATMI were at 100%/98% of our FY23e forecasts. 4Q23 PATMI grew 52% YoY on higher operating leverage.

Advertising is still on the rebound, with 11% YoY growth improving sequentially for a 4th straight quarter. APAC retail strength was the standout again. FY24e CAPEX levels are expected to be significantly higher vs FY23 as GOOGL continues to scale its technical infrastructure to support AI development.

We cut our FY24e PATMI by ~5% as a result of increasing R&D investments in AI. Due to recent price action, we downgrade to ACCUMULATE from BUY, but raise our DCF target price to US$154 (prev. US$144) as we roll-over an additional year of valuations, with an unchanged WACC of 7.3% and terminal growth rate of 3.5%.

We expect GOOGL to remain the market leader in digital advertising by leveraging AI for product improvements and efficiencies, while also being well positioned to capture more eyeballs through YouTube and connected TV.

Source: Phillips

https://www.poems.com.sg/stock-research/GOOGL/

[winston]

not vested

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) – Tuesday, January 30

Alphabet bested analysts’ expectations for its fourth-quarter earnings and sales results Tuesday evening.

The company reported earnings of $1.64 per share and sales of $86.31 billion, up from earnings of $1.05 per share and revenue of $76.04 billion a year ago.

Analysts were calling for earnings of $1.60 per share and $85.28 billion in sales.

Digging a little deeper into the report… YouTube ad revenue came in at $9.2 billion, in line with analysts’ estimates for $9.21 billion. That’s also up by 15.7% from revenue of $7.95 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

Additionally, Google Cloud revenue increased 25.6% year-over-year to $9.19 billion, besting analysts’ estimates for $8.94 billion.

Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated:

We are pleased with the ongoing strength in Search and the growing contribution from YouTube and Cloud. Each of these is already benefiting from our AI investments and innovation. As we enter the Gemini era, the best is yet to come.

Now, in case you were wondering, Pichai wasn’t referring to a horoscope. Rather, Gemini is the company’s AI language model, which launched last month. But the heart of the tech giant’s business is ad revenue.

And in the company’s latest earnings report, ad revenue was up 10.9% year-over-year to $65.5 billion but missed analyst expectations of $65.8 billion.

Despite beating estimates on the top and bottom lines, GOOG shares fell about 2.5% on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Wall Street couldn’t get past the missed ad revenue expectations.

Source: Market 360

[winston]

not vested

The Magnificent Seven stock to buy hand over fist in February: Alphabet

Arguably the biggest concern for Alphabet is that nearly 76% of its $86.3 billion in total revenue from 2023 came from advertising.

Google accounts for 91.5% of worldwide internet search share.

Daily views of YouTube Shorts catapulted from 6.5 billion in 2021 to more than 50 billion by early last year.

Google Cloud just delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of operating income following years of operating losses. Enterprise cloud spending is still in its early innings, which suggests there's a double-digit, exceptionally high-margin growth opportunity to be had with cloud infrastructure services.

But the top selling point for Alphabet might just be that it remains cheap. Its forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 18 is actually lower than the forward P/E of the benchmark S&P 500 -- despite Alphabet's offering a higher growth rate.

Furthermore, it's valued at less than 13 times forward-year cash flow, which compares to an average cash flow multiple of 18 times over the previous five years.

Tack on a $97.7 billion net cash buffer and it's easy to see why Alphabet is a screaming bargain in February (and beyond).

Source: TMF