We recently published a list of 10 AI Stocks Wall Street is Talking About. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stands against other AI stocks Wall Street is talking about.
Defiance ETFs CEO and CIO Sylvia Jablonski said in a recent program on Bloomberg that there are trillions of dollars of cash waiting on the sidelines ready to be invested in AI amid demand that is at an all-time high.
“There’s a biggest wealth transfer of our generation happening as we speak. And you know, Gen Z, you know, Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X kind of, you know, the younger traders are, this is where they’re allocating their funds to. And, you know, retail has definitely spoken, and institutions have definitely spoken, and they’re looking for that, that fourth industrial revolution allocation.”
Sylvia also talked about the relationship between quantum computing and AI and explained how this technology would improve AI systems:
“So chatbot AI is, you know, kind of version one. Quantum is taking everything to the next level. So you need quantum in order for it to be efficient. You need to process that data quickly. It will help, you know, essentially health care, cryptography, aerospace and defense, you know, blockchain technology. Anything you can think of will be better, too, with quantum supercomputing power.”
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For this article, we chose 10 AI stocks that are currently buzzing on the back of latest news and analyst ratings. With each stock we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A laptop and phone open to Google’s services in an everyday setting.
Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 160
Chris Grisanti, MAI Capital Management chief marketing strategist, made the case for Alphabet during a program on CNBC and said he believes the stock is undervalued.
“I would urge investors to look through the antitrust stuff, which I would say will take at least half a decade to play out. Use this as an opportunity to crunch the numbers. It’s now selling at its lowest PE relative to the market of all time—about 80% of the market PE in an expensive market. This is the one MAG7 stock I really like. It can perform well if it hits its earnings numbers, it’s not overly expensive, and it offers a nice way to invest in that space even if you’re cautious about the other valuations.”
Grisanti also reminded investors about Microsoft’s anti-trust issues back in the day and the stock performance:
“I’d ask investors to take a deep breath. I am old enough to remember Microsoft in the late ’90s and their six-year battle with the antitrust authorities, where the government sought to break up the company. Microsoft lost the first round but eventually prevailed on appeal. During that time, the stock tripled.”
The market has been ignoring Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s key secondary businesses and the stock remains undervalued despite concerns around AI search and regulatory onslaught.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s secondary ventures in AI, autonomous driving, and other areas are making solid progress, especially in the Waymo robotaxi segment. Currently, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s stock trades below 20 times forward earnings, offering potential upside as EPS and other financial metrics strengthen in coming years. For next year, the consensus EPS estimate sits around $9. However, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has consistently beaten projections, delivering $7.54 in trailing twelve-month EPS compared to the expected $6.79—a roughly 11% outperformance.
With the 2025 EPS forecast at around $9, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) could realistically achieve earnings closer to $10 if it maintains its historical outperformance rate. At a projected $10 EPS, Google’s forward P/E multiple would be approximately 17, a relatively low valuation for a diversified market leader.
What are the key drivers for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)?
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) remains on track to reach a $100 billion revenue run rate from YouTube Ads and Google Cloud by the end of 2024. In its autonomous driving division, Waymo has shown notable progress, with paid autonomous rides growing 200% quarter-over-quarter to 150,000 weekly rides as of late October, thanks to a fleet of 700 vehicles in service since August.
This growth is significant: Waymo vehicles now average about 30.6 autonomous rides per day—substantially higher than Uber’s average of 4.18 rides per driver daily, based on Uber’s 31 million daily trips and 7.4 million drivers last quarter. This performance underscores Waymo’s competitive edge in autonomous ride volume compared to traditional ride-hailing.
In the third quarter, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Search & Other segment saw a 12.2% year-over-year revenue increase, rising from $44.03 billion to $49.39 billion. YouTube advertising also performed well, with revenue up 12.2% to $8.92 billion from $7.95 billion. Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s subscriptions, platforms, and devices revenue grew even more sharply, surging 27.8% from $8.34 billion to $10.66 billion.
Google Cloud has been expanding steadily, with revenue climbing from $13.06 billion in 2020 to $33.09 billion in 2023. Notably, Google Cloud turned profitable for the first time in 2023, posting $1.72 billion in operating profit—a significant improvement from a $5.61 billion loss in 2020. This segment’s performance continues to strengthen, with the latest quarterly revenue reaching $11.35 billion, up 35% from $8.41 billion in the same period last year.
Conventum – Alluvium Global Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), ie Google/YouTube, having returned 20.8% in the June quarter, gave a fair bit of that back by falling 8.8%. Its results seemed pretty positive, and appeared to beat expectations. Management claims its AI integration into its search business is working well, and the margin expansion from costs out is expected to continue. Market chatter suggests that the selloff stems from concerns about the high capital spending on servers and data center equipment. Alphabet has made it clear that this spending is necessary, and somewhat defensive as it can’t risk losing the AI war (a “build it, and they will come” approach). Also, the new Department of Justice case against it probably did not help matters. Nonetheless, we saw no need to adjust our estimates. We wrote last quarter that it traded at a premium to our valuation, but not so much as to warrant selling. With the share price falling and the premium reducing, our view is unchanged. It represents 4.4% of the Fund.”
Overall, GOOG ranks 3rd on our list of AI stocks Wall Street is talking about. While we acknowledge the potential of GOOG, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than GOOG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
