Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) will announce its second-quarter financial results after the market closes on Wednesday, July 22. The stock is up 87% in the past year, but it's also down 14% from the record high it reached in May.
Should investors buy a few shares ahead of the earnings report? Most Wall Street analysts say the answer is "yes." Alphabet has a median target price of $440 per share, which implies 27% upside from the current share price of $346. However, investors should first acquaint themselves with the company.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
Alphabet reported impressive financial results in the first quarter. Revenue increased 22% to $109.8 billion, the fourth straight acceleration, driven by particularly strong sales growth in the cloud segment, which itself was due to insatiable demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
Meanwhile, net income increased 82% to $5.11 per diluted share, but that figure was inflated by unrealized investment gains, primarily from Alphabet's stake in SpaceX. Operating earnings, which excludes those investment gains, increased 29% to $39.6 billion.
Alphabet didn't provide guidance for the second quarter. But the Wall Street consensus estimate says revenue will increase 21% to $116.8 billion and earnings (excluding the impact of unrealized investment gains) will increase 25% to $2.89 per diluted share.
Investors should review management's commentary about capital expenditures (capex), meaning what the company plans to spend on property, plants, and equipment this year. During the first-quarter earnings call, management said capex would total $180 billion to $190 billion in 2026, slightly higher than what it projected earlier in the year. Investors may get nervous if the company revises that figure even higher.
Alphabet's primary growth driver will be its cloud computing business. The company still trails Amazon and Microsoft, but it's steadily gaining market share because of the popularity of its Gemini models and custom AI accelerators called tensor processing units (TPUs). Google Cloud accounted for 14% of cloud infrastructure spending in Q1 2026, up from 12% in Q1 2025.
Source: Yahoo Finance Top News — This article was automatically imported from the source. Read full article at original source →
