5 Best American Stocks To Buy Now

3. Alphabet Inc. Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 179
Total Value of Hedge Fund Holdings: $21.9 Billion

Ranking 3rd in our list of 15 best American stocks to buy now is Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). The multinational conglomerate first went public in 2004 with an IPO price of $85. Alphabet Inc. was one of the best American stocks that thrived during the pandemic with advertisers’ spending flood. Google’s ad segment accounted for 81% of Alphabet’s $56.9 billion revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 23% from the previous year.

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) revenue in the first quarter of 2021 came in at $55 billion, up from $41.2 billion during the first quarter of 2020. Shares of GOOGL rose 61% over the past twelve months.

There were 179 hedge funds that reported owning stakes in Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) at the end of the fourth quarter, up from 162 funds a quarter earlier. The total value of these stakes at the end of Q4 is $21.9 billion.

Polen Capital Management mentioned Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in its Q1 2020 investor letter

“For our top contributors, each generated strong returns for different, but fundamentally based reasons, in our opinion. Alphabet saw renewed strength recently as advertisers generally resumed spending after a short pause during the pandemic.

Alphabet experienced some challenging quarters in 2020 as many companies paused their advertising spend. But, the business bounced back recently, spurring a strong recovery in the company’s share price. Even during such a challenging period, the company still compounded revenue at 14% in constant currency for 2020.

This is partly due to Alphabet’s multiple growth engines. For example, while its search business was negative one quarter and only grew by 6% during another, YouTube ads and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) grew at over 30% and 46% during the quarter, respectively. YouTube and GCP combined now contribute over 50% of the company’s growth, which we believe is a testament to a strong culture of innovation, a long-term mindset, and prudent capital allocation. With search bouncing back this most recent quarter–growing 17% –we believe that Alphabet continues to be well-positioned to durably compound earnings at or above 15% for many years to come. It remains one of our largest positions.”