Alphabet Inc. (formerly: Google)

[cyclone]

If you invested $1,000 in Google 10 years ago, here’s how much you’d have now

Anna Hecht
Published Tue, Oct 8 20191:42 PM EDT

On Sept. 27, Google turned 21. The tech giant has a lot to celebrate after more than two decades in business: It’s one of the world’s most visited websites and its name is so popular it’s been deemed a verb in the English dictionary (No, seriously — Google it!).

Google’s success since going public has turned out to be a positive for shareholders. A $1,000 investment in 2009 would be worth more than $4,800 as of Oct. 2, 2019, for a total return of around 400%, according to CNBC calculations. In the same time frame, by comparison, the S&P 500 earned a total return of just more than 250%. The company, which went public in 2004, has a current share price around $1,200.

While Google’s shares have done well over the years, any individual stock can over- or underperform and past returns do not predict future results. It’s important to note that Google is actually now called Alphabet. This change took place in 2015 as a way of reorganizing the company and its growing number of businesses beyond search. GOOGL, as it’s shown in the chart below, is a stock ticker symbol for Alphabet, Google’s parent company.


CNBC: Google’s stock since 2009.

How Google got its start

Google was founded in 1998 by two Stanford Ph.D. students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The pair wrote and published a paper about developing a “prototype of a large-scale search engine,” which became the first iteration of the Google we know today.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/what-a-1...years.html

[cyclone]

Google share of search ad market high but shrinking: eMarketer

Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
OCTOBER 15, 2019 / 5:24 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google dominates the growing U.S. search ad market but Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is growing fast, according to data from the market research company eMarketer released on Tuesday.

EMarketer data showed that the U.S. search ad market will grow by nearly 18% in 2019, and Google will have 73.1% of that market and revenues of $40.33 billion. EMarketer said that Google’s share would decline to 70.5% by 2021.

Google faces investigations by the Justice Department, House of Representatives Judiciary Committee based on allegations that it abuses this dominance in ways that violate antitrust law.

The data also showed that Amazon, which overtook Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for the No. 2 spot in 2018, and has 12.9% of the market, boosting search revenue to $7.09 billion.

More details in https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t...SKBN1WU1A0

[cyclone]

Google is getting into banking with the search giant set to offer checking accounts next year
* Google plans to offer checking accounts next year.
* The project, code-named Cache, will be run in conjunction with Citigroup and the Stanford Federal Credit Union.

Jeff Cox
PUBLISHED WED, NOV 13 20196:50 AM EST
UPDATED WED, NOV 13 20194:39 PM EST

Google will offer checking accounts next year as it partners with financial institutions including Citigroup, representing Big Tech’s boldest move yet into consumer banking.

Most previous efforts have focused on credit cards and payment platforms.

As part of a project code-named Cache, the company will become the latest Silicon Valley leader to try its hand at the banking space, the Wall Street Journal reported. Previous attempts by Apple and Facebook faced obstacles, with consumers growing increasingly skeptical over providing large technology companies with their personal information.

“We’re exploring how we can partner with banks and credit unions in the US to offer smart checking accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools, while keeping their money in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. “We look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.”

Google does not intend to sell customers’ data, Caesar Sengupta, an executive at the firm, told the Journal.

“If we can help more people do more stuff in a digital way online, it’s good for the internet and good for us,” Sengupta said.

For years, banks had been concerned about competition from small, nimble fintech upstarts. But it turns out that Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon, already armed with relationships with hundreds of millions of consumers, may prove to be the larger threat.

Last year, Amazon had reportedly been in talks with J.P. Morgan Chase over a checking account. Apple launched a credit card for iPhone users earlier this year with Goldman Sachs. Uber announced its push into financial services last month, and just Tuesday Facebook announced a new system to facilitate payments across its social media and messaging systems.

Apple’s offering has run into multiple issues. Its partnership with Goldman has been tense after Apple said it created the card without help from a bank. Also, complaints have arisen recently that the algorithm used to determine customers’ credit limits is biased toward men.

Facebook’s foray into digital currency saw major financial backers drop out over regulatory concerns.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/13/google-r...-year.html

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Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepping down as Alphabet executives

By Kaya Yurieff, CNN Business
Updated 0942 GMT (1742 HKT) December 4, 2019

New York (CNN Business)More than 20 years after launching Google out of a Menlo Park garage, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are relinquishing their executive roles at its parent company Alphabet (GOOGL).

Page and Brin are stepping down as CEO and president, respectively, of Alphabet, the company announced Tuesday. Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google and a longtime executive at the company, will take over as CEO of Alphabet in addition to his current role.

The cofounders will continue to serve on Alphabet's board of directors. They also maintain voting control over the business, all but guaranteeing their ability to influence the direction of Alphabet with or without their executive titles.

"We've never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President," they wrote in a letter.

The executive shuffle comes at a time when Google is facing mounting scrutiny. Regulators and politicians in the US and Europe have questioned the company's size, data privacy practices and potential impact on society. Page, once the face of the company, has largely receded from public view.

Page has been absent from the company's quarterly earnings calls, and notably hasn't appeared at big tech hearings on Capitol Hill. In 2018, Page was called before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating foreign election meddling, but didn't show. Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek published an article headlined "Where in the World is Larry Page?"

Meanwhile, Page has been investing in flying car startups.

At the same time, Google is confronting growing tensions with its own employees. Last week, Google dismissed several outspoken workers for allegedly violating its data-security policies. Some employees quickly accused Google of trying to suppress its critics, as well as workers' attempts to organize.

Pichai, who is known for his engineering talents and general likeability, took over as CEO of Google in 2015 as part of the company's broader corporate restructuring to create Alphabet. Prior that, Pichai had held a variety of roles at the company, including overseeing Chrome, product chief of Google and head of the Android operating system.

As Google CEO, he has appeared on earnings calls and keynoted major events such as the Google I/O developer conference. Under his leadership, Google's business has continued to grow and expand more into hardware and cloud computing, though the vast majority of its revenue still comes from advertising.

More details in https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/03/tech/...index.html

[cyclone]

Which company just hit $1 trillion? Google it.

David Randall
ANUARY 17, 2020 / 4:23 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Google-parent Alphabet Inc became on Thursday the fourth U.S. company to top a market value of more than $1 trillion, some funds holding its shares are wondering whether now is the time to cash in on the stock’s extraordinary gains.

Shares of the Internet search giant are up nearly 17% over the last three months, outpacing a broader rally in the S&P 500 index over the same period by 6 percentage points.

Short interest in the stock, a measure of how many investors are betting on a price decline, is at 1%, near a 52-week high for the company and higher than competitors such as Microsoft and Facebook, according to Refinitv data.

Alphabet joins Apple, Amazon.com and Microsoft as the only U.S. companies to hit $1 trillion in market value.

“Google is a stock that won’t get you fired,” said Kevin Landis, a portfolio manager at Firsthand Funds who hasn’t added to his current Alphabet position since the first quarter of 2019. “Will I be able to double my money in this stock from here? I’m not sure about that.”

Alphabet’s shares are among a small group of stocks found in the top holdings of both mutual funds and hedge funds, two types of institutions whose investing styles tend to be markedly different, a Goldman Sachs analysis showed. That could leave it exposed to volatile price swings if sentiment suddenly changes.

Despite those concerns, many investors are finding it hard to say goodbye. The 28% climb in Alphabet and the performance of other technology and tech-related stocks helped money managers post big gains in 2019, making it difficult for many to justify cutting their exposure even as they fret over the implications of its run-up.

Ernesto Ramos, portfolio manager of the BMO Large-Cap Growth Fund, has held onto his shares, betting that Alphabet’s exposure to online advertising will eventually justify its above-average valuation. Alphabet trades at 26.6 times future earnings, compared with 18.5 for the S&P 500.

Scott Goginsky, a portfolio manager of the Biondo Focus fund, has held off adding to a longstanding position over the last year, concerned that the company’s costs are likely to increase due to its efforts to pre-empt any additional regulatory measures from Washington. That could cut into the margins of businesses like YouTube if it needs to hire additional workers to vet user-posted content, he said.

Alphabet is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 3. In its latest report, the company missed analysts’ estimates for third-quarter profit by about $1.7 billion, though it beat revenue expectations. That news did little to dent investors’ bullishness on the company: Alphabet’s stock retreated briefly on the report, only to resume its climb several days later.

More details in https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-f...SKBN1ZF2SH

[Wildreamz]

https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/27/alphab...-grows-54/

Alphabet crushes Q2 earnings estimates as Google Cloud cuts losses, grows 54%

Today after the bell amidst a deluge of major technology company earnings reports, Alphabet reported its own second-quarter performance. The search-and-services company posted revenues of $61.9 billion in the June 30, 2021 quarter, net income of $18.5 billion, and earnings per share of $27.26. Those figures work out to top-line growth of 62%, and net income expansion of 166%. Naturally Google is currently being compared to pandemic-impacted Q2 2020 results, but its gains are noteworthy regardless.

To be early to the game, you also need to stay in the game.

Alphabet is still very early, in Cloud, YouTube, Hardware (Pixel, Chromebooks), Enterprise Software (Workspace; formerly G-Suite). I think Sundar done a good job refocusing the organization along the appropriate growth vectors.

Pixel 6 is shaping up to be one of the more exciting Google hardware product to be announced in recent years; with rumoured in-house designed ARM SoC (Whitechapel) and 5 years of guaranteed software support (https://www.androidguys.com/news/google-pixel-6/ ; https://www.techradar.com/sg/news/google...ust-follow).

IMHO, not investment advise. 

Peace.

(vested)

[weijian]

Platforms that act as the gatekeeper have been extracting a lot of rents for the last decade....so much so that some customers feel that these gatekeepers have started taking more than they give in value.

Platforms like Spotify and Netflix whom are dealing with the artists directly, have already started to give back the power to the context creators themselves. Is a change to platform economics coming soon?

Google tests letting apps like Spotify offer own billing

"This is a significant milestone and the first on any major app store - whether on mobile, desktop, or game consoles," Sameer Samat, a Google vice-president, wrote Wednesday (Mar 23) in a blog post. The executive said Google would be sharing more "in the coming months".

Both Google and Apple have faced pressure from lawsuits and in Congress for requiring app makers to use their payments systems. Google takes a 30 per cent commission on most app store purchases and subscriptions, but lowered the fee in recent years to 15 per cent for media providers like Spotify. Spotify is one of several companies that have complained about the inability to use their own billing systems on mobile app stores.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/consume...wn-billing

[learntoinvest2022]

Very insightful thoughts about Alphabet.

Recently, I also did a short comprehensive analysis about Alphabet:
https://learntoinvests.com/with-record-e...right-now/

Please let us know what are your thoughts about them, fellow value investors!

[weijian]

Youtube is the only social media I use right now. While I am not going to become world class any time soon, but a huge aspect of my learning is coming from Youtube since the Covid19 outbreak.

The YouTube learning machine

Julius Yego is a Kenyan track athlete. He won silver for the javelin event at the 2016 Rio Olympics and has been given the glorious nickname “Mr. YouTube”.

Why? Because in Kenya — where most top athletes gravitate to long-distance running — Yego went against his dad’s wishes and taught himself how to be a world-class javelin thrower…by watching YouTube highlights.

https://samoburja.com/the-youtube-revolu...-transfer/

[weijian]

This sort of asymmetric outcomes remind me of franchises like NBA/NFL where outsize rewards await the winners and most importantly, anyone can be a winner. And because of this, this free UGC flywheel will continue to attract more UGC and then with it, attracts the viewers and subsequently the ad dollars.

MrBeast's $1.5B YouTube empire

Only 24 years old, MrBeast has built an enormous audience by creating viral content like re-building Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, amassing more than 200 million subscribers across multiple YouTube channels (as of last week, his original channel — with 112 million subs — made him the most followed person on YouTube)

https://trungphan.substack.com/p/mrbeast...ube-empire