Is Alphabet (GOOG) A Smart Long-Term Buy?

RiverPark Funds, an investment management firm, published its “RiverPark Large Growth Fund” third quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. The RiverPark Large Growth Fund (the “Fund”) returned -3.23% for the third quarter of 2021, while its benchmarks, the S&P 500 Total Return Index (“S&P”) advanced 0.58%, the Russell 1000 Growth Total Return Index (“RLG”) returned 1.16%, while the Morningstar Large Growth Category returned -0.07%. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their best picks for 2021.

RiverPark Large Growth Fund, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and discussed its stance on the firm. Alphabet Inc. is a Mountain View, California-based multinational technology conglomerate holding company with a $1.9 trillion market capitalization. GOOG delivered a 66.81% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 65.97%. The stock closed at $2,922.28 per share on November 29, 2021.

Here is what RiverPark Large Growth Fund has to say about Alphabet Inc.  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“Internet services leader Alphabet was also a top contributor for the quarter, hitting its all-time high on September 1. Fundamentals at the company remain stellar—the company reported its highest quarter ever for sales and profit in late July. The company reported secondquarter revenue of $62 billion, an increase of 62% year over year, which, when combined with strong expense controls, led to a tripling of operating income to $19 billion. The company experienced strong revenue growth across all its segments—Google Services (mostly Advertising) grew 63%, Google Cloud grew 54% and Other Bets grew 30%.

With its continued strength across its core Search and YouTube franchises and emerging strength in its still small Cloud business, we continue to view Alphabet as among the best-positioned secular growth franchises. Additionally, despite its strong performance this year, GOOG shares trade at a compelling 20x our 2022 EPS estimate (which includes earnings drags from losses in its Other Bets and Google Cloud segments, which lost a combined $2 billion last quarter), only a slight premium to the market.”

Photo by Kai Wenzel on Unsplash

Based on our calculations, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) ranks 5th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. GOOG was in 156 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 155 funds in the previous quarter. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) delivered a 0.44% return in the past 3 months.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.