igoriss Intro & Thesis My coverage of Alphabet Inc. ( NASDAQ: GOOGL ) ( NASDAQ: GOOG ) ( NEOE: GOOG:CA ) stock was initiated here on Seeking Alpha back in November 2022. For the past 4 articles, I maintained a "Hold" rating, pointing out that Google's launch of Gemini, a large language model for AI applications, should challenge Microsoft's ( MSFT ) " AI monopoly " and could boost Google's projected EPS figures in the medium term.
However, my "Hold" rating was influenced by the underwhelming GCP performance and the stock's relatively high valuation at the time. Seeking Alpha, my coverage of Alphabet In my very last article ( dated March 2024 ) I noted that if I add up all the positive and negative aspects of the company's development, I find more positives, but Google seemed to be already fairly valued. Today I think about Google the same way - the time to buy this tech giant cheap last year has gone.
Now investors should trim or protect their existing long positions through call options selling as the growth upside potential seems to be limited at this point, in my opinion. Why Do I Think So? First off, I should say that looking at the most recent financials ( Q1 FY2024 ), it's indeed hard to be bearish on Google at this point in time. The biggest news coming out of 1Q results may have been the company's announcement that it'll initiate a quarterly cash dividend for the 1st time in its history - now Google is a fully-fledged dividend stock, whose dividend yield should amount.
