GOOG - Alphabet Inc.
1,479.80 -0.59 (-0.04%)
After hours: 5:03PM EST
| Previous close | 1,451.70 |
| Open | 1,462.91 |
| Bid | 1,480.00 x 1100 |
| Ask | 1,481.17 x 1000 |
| Day's range | 1,458.22 - 1,481.22 |
| 52-week range | 1,025.00 - 1,481.22 |
| Volume | 1,756,618 |
| Avg. volume | 1,325,365 |
| Market cap | 1.02T |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 1.02 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 31.77 |
| EPS (TTM) | 46.60 |
| Earnings date | N/A |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | N/A |
| 1y target est | 1,520.20 |
- Yahoo Finance
Stock market news live: Stocks close at records after strong data, earnings
Headlines moving the stock market in real time.
- Yahoo Finance
Picking stocks: Don’t shoot like Shaq
What does Shaquille O’Neal’s underwhelming ability to shoot free throws have to do with your ability to pick stocks? Everything, says Fundstrat's Tom Lee.
- Bloomberg
Sonos CEO Tells House Antitrust Panel Google Abused Power
(Bloomberg) -- Sonos Inc. Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence accused Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. of using their market power to thwart competition a week after filing a lawsuit against the world’s largest search engine.“Today’s dominant companies have so much power across such a broad array of markets and continue to leverage that power to expand into new markets that we need to rethink existing laws and policies,” said Spence Friday at a congressional antitrust hearing in Boulder, Colorado, led by Representative David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who is investigating competition in the technology sector.Sonos, a 1,500-person company, sued Google Jan. 7 for allegedly infringing five patents covering multi-room audio technology. Spence said Google’s dominance enabled it to violate the speaker company’s intellectual property. He said that Google tries to prevent customers from using its voice assistants alongside another company’s on Sonos speakers. While Amazon doesn’t go that far, he said, it has used its power to “to subsidize the conquest” of the booming smart-speaker market, particularly by under-pricing its offerings.Sonos has worked with the committee since before it decided to file the lawsuit, according to a person familiar with the discussions. It has also responded to questions that the committee sent to customers of the large technology platforms.Google has disputed Sonos’ claims and said it will defend itself. The search giant, which faces antitrust probes by 48 state attorneys general as well as the U.S. Justice Department, says it faces robust competition. Cicilline is using the hearing to air grievances by smaller companies, following a series of Washington meetings that focused on the tech giants.“It is apparent that the dominant platforms are increasingly using their gatekeeper power in abusive and coercive ways,” Cicilline said in his opening statement.The panel also heard from David Barnett, the founder of Boulder-based PopSockets, which makes phone holders and stands. He alleged that Amazon frequently engaged in “bullying,” including deliberately selling counterfeits, threatening to go to unauthorized resellers and dropping prices without consulting. “We have $10 million less to innovate this year” because of PopSockets’s decision to end its relationship with Amazon even though it’s more difficult to sell elsewhere, Barnett said.“It seems like Amazon is so dominant that there is no alternative,” said Representative Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican on the committee.Amazon said in a statement that PopSockets is a “valued retail vendor” and added: “We’ve continued to work with PopSockets to address our shared concerns about counterfeit, and continue to have a relationship with PopSockets through Merch by Amazon, which enables other sellers to create customized PopSockets for sale.”The company said it refuses to work with some resellers to ensure low prices, and rejects the notion that it’s dominant, saying it represents just 4% of U.S. retail.The panel also heard from Kirsten Daru, general counsel of Tile Inc., which makes devices that pair with phones to help people locate lost items such as keys or purses.Apple Inc. is reportedly preparing to unveil a competing service, and Daru’s 100-employee company alleges the phone maker has started putting up roadblocks to Tile’s business, such as burying permissions that allow the phone and Tile devices to communicate and prompting users to disable permissions that have been set.“You’re playing up against a team that owns the field, the ball and can change the rules at any given time,” Daru said in an interview before the hearing, adding that a majority of the company’s customers are on Apple’s operating system.Apple said that its treatment of permissions, which focused on location, were designed to protect user privacy and that it’s working with developers whose customers may want particular apps to be able to track them at all times.Daru said Apple also removed Tile devices from its retail stores, and that it bid on search terms related to the would-be rival to drive up the cost of advertising 50% each week during the fall.Cicilline has said his goal is to develop a final report with recommendations for Congress this year. He told reporters on Tuesday that he wants to wrap up his probe by the end of March and said he’s hopeful the tech giants will cooperate with requests for chief executives to give information without subpoenas, preferably in public hearings.“It’s hard to imagine that we’d conclude the investigation without hearing from some of the large technology CEOs, particularly in companies whether there’s such really centralized decision making,” he said.(Updates with comments from PopSockets CEO from eighth paragraph)\--With assistance from Mark Gurman, Rebecca Kern and David McLaughlin.To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Brody in Washington, D.C. at btenerellabr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Paula DwyerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Buy Google parent Alphabet Stock at its New $1 Trillion Market Cap?
Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) have jumped 9% in 2020 to help it ascend into the $1 trillion market cap club. Is it time to buy?
- Bloomberg
Amazon’s Snooping on Alexa Chats Spurs EU Privacy Response
(Bloomberg) -- European Union privacy watchdogs are gearing up to police digital assistants after revelations that Amazon.com Inc. workers listened in on people’s conversations with their Alexa digital assistants.Bloomberg first reported in April that Amazon had a team of thousands of workers around the world listening to Alexa audio requests with the goal of improving the software.Similar issues have been raised over Google and Apple Inc.’s digital assistants, triggering privacy fears across the world, as intimate conversations in some users’ homes were laid bare to technicians fine-tuning the technology.EU regulators are now working on a common approach on how to police the technology, said Tine Larsen, head of the data protection authority in Luxembourg, where the U.S. retail giant has its European base and employs a staff of more than 2,000.“Because it’s a question of principle, the members of the EDPB should work out a common position in line with the consistency mechanism to apply data protection rules in a harmonized way for this type of treatment,” she said, referring to a panel of regulators from across the 28-nation EU.The revelations of the snooping into people’s homes came after regulators across Europe were handed beefed-up powers with its General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018, including the right to levy fines of as much as 4% of a company’s global annual sales for the most serious violations. But the move toward common guidelines for digital assistants means companies should avoid fines -- for now.Larsen’s comments echo those of Helen Dixon, head of the Irish watchdog, responsible for overseeing the likes of Apple and Google.She told Bloomberg in November that the regulator first has to “bottom out fully on whether it’s true” when companies say they need to do transcripts of people’s interactions with the assistants. That’s why a focus will be first on coming up with guidelines, instead of investigations or inquiries, she said.Amazon said in a statement that “to help improve Alexa, we manually review and annotate a small fraction of 1% of Alexa requests” and that “access to data annotation tools is only granted to a limited number of employees who require them to improve the service.”EU regulators are working on a common position on the privacy issues surrounding voice assistant systems, said Johannes Caspar, head of the watchdog in Hamburg, Germany. “We urgently need common and reliable industry standards on this to better regulate” privacy protections, he said in an email.Caspar’s office initiated a number of probes into the issue, including one into Facebook over audio transcriptions from its Messenger users, he said. The questions his office has asked of Facebook have been discussed within the EDPB, the EU body of national regulators. The plan is to use the results to have a more coordinated approach by all European regulators affected by the issue, he said.Europe Mulls New Tougher Rules for Artificial IntelligenceThe U.K., which is set to leave the EU at the end of the month, will soon publish the results of a consultation into security features for smart speakers and other connected devices, with proposals for mandatory industry requirements that could lead to potential new regulation, U.K. Digital Secretary Nicky Morgan told Bloomberg Wednesday.Siri ChangesApple, whose Siri virtual assistant is embedded in its operating phone and desktop computer operating systems, pointed to an August blog post about the issue.“We know that customers have been concerned by recent reports of people listening to audio Siri recordings as part of our Siri quality evaluation process — which we call grading,” it said. “We heard their concerns, immediately suspended human grading of Siri requests and began a thorough review of our practices and policies. We’ve decided to make some changes to Siri as a result.”Google, which offers similar technology, referred to its September announcement that it would add new security protections to the way its workers listen to audio snippets, meant to help improve the product’s quality.In a blog post in September, Google said it would tell users that their audio may be listened to if they opt in to a feature that also improves audio quality. “We believe in putting you in control of your data, and we always work to keep it safe. We’re committed to being transparent about how our settings work so you can decide what works best for you,” the company said.While Amazon is escaping penalties over Alexa, Luxembourg, which is the company’s main privacy watchdog in Europe, is probing the company for other potential breaches.This follows complaints from activists that the online retailer is illegally tracking and profiling internet users without their permission, as well as not providing full access to users’ data.Amazon ‘Cooperating’The company says it’s “cooperating” with the authority, “which is at an advanced stage of its fact finding,” according to an emailed statement. The data commission declined to comment on any probes, citing local rules.French privacy activists La Quadrature du Net, filed one of the complaints on behalf of more than 10,000 customers. They urge regulators to crack down on “behavioral analysis and targeted advertising” by Amazon and levy a fine that is “as high as possible” due to the “massive, lasting and manifestly deliberate nature” of the alleged violations without the consent of its users.None of Your Business (Noyb), a group created by Austrian activist Max Schrems, followed up with a separate complaint last January over data access concerns, accusing Amazon of violating EU law by not handing over all personal data requested by a user of its Amazon Prime service.Arthur Messaud, a lawyer with La Quadrature du Net, and Schrems said they’d had no updates from the Luxembourg regulator, which is bound by strict secrecy provisions under national law, meaning it can’t reveal details until after any fines have been levies and all avenues of appeal have been exhausted.(Updates with Google response from 15th paragraph)\--With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak.To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Luxembourg at sbodoni@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman, Giles TurnerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Break up big tech's 'monopoly', smaller rivals tell Congress hearing
In April 2019, Tile.com, which helps users find lost or misplaced items, suddenly found itself competing with Apple Inc , after years of enjoying a mutually beneficial relationship with the iPhone maker. Apple carried Tile on its app store and had sold its products at its stores since 2015. It had even showcased Tile's technology at a big event in 2018.
- Reuters
Lessons to be learned from Facebook's WhatsApp deal, French watchdog says
Facebook's $22 billion buyout of WhatsApp six years ago should have been blocked, the boss of France's antitrust watchdog, which is set to help review EU rules, has told Reuters. "Clearly, deals such as the Facebook/WhatsApp merger should probably not have been allowed," Isabelle de Silva said in an interview. A spokesman for Facebook had no immediate comment.
- Bloomberg
Europe Mulls New Tougher Rules for Artificial Intelligence
(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is considering new legally binding requirements for developers of artificial intelligence in an effort to ensure modern technology is developed and used in an ethical way.The EU’s executive arm is set to propose the new rules apply to “high-risk sectors,” such as healthcare and transport, and suggest the bloc updates safety and liability laws, according to a draft of a so-called “white paper” on artificial intelligence obtained by Bloomberg. The European Commission is due to unveil the paper in mid-February and the final version is likely to change.The paper is part of the EU’s broader effort to catch up to the U.S. and China on advancements in AI, but in a way that promotes European values such as user privacy. While some critics have long argued that stringent data protection laws like the EU’s could hinder innovation around AI, EU officials say harmonizing rules across the region will boost development.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged her team would present a new legislative approach on artificial intelligence within the first 100 days of her mandate, which started Dec. 1, handing the task to the EU’s digital chief, Margrethe Vestager, to coordinate.A spokesman for the Brussels-based Commission declined to comment on leaks but added: “To maximize the benefits and address the challenges of Artificial Intelligence, Europe has to act as one and will define its own way, a human way. Trust and security of EU citizens will therefore be at the center of the EU’s strategy.”Facial RecognitionThe EU is also considering new obligations for public authorities around the deployment of facial recognition technology and more detailed rules on the use of such systems in public spaces. However, the provision on facial recognition isn’t among the three policy options officials recommend that the commission pursue.The provision suggests prohibiting use of facial recognition by public and private actors in public spaces for several years to allow time to assess the risks of such technology.“Such a ban would be a far-reaching measure that might hamper the development and uptake of this technology,” the commission says in the document, adding that it’s therefore preferable to focus on implementing relevant provisions in the EU’s existing data protection laws.As part of the recommended policy measures, the EU also wants to urge its member states to appoint authorities to monitor the enforcement of any future rules governing the use of AI, according to the document.In the draft, the EU defines high-risk applications as “applications of artificial intelligence which can produce legal effects for the individual or the legal entity or pose risk of injury, death or significant material damage for the individual or the legal entity.”Artificial intelligence is already subject to a variety of European regulations, including rules on fundamental rights around privacy, non-discrimination, as well as product safety and liability laws, but the rules may not fully cover all specific risks posed by new technologies, the Commission says in the document. For instance, product safety laws currently wouldn’t apply to services based on AI.Key RequirementsThe EU’s AI strategy will build on previous work coordinated by the commission, including reports published in the last year by a committee of academics, experts and executives. EU rules often reverberate across the globe, as companies don’t want to build software or hardware which would be banned from the bloc’s vast developed market.One of the reports outlined a set of seven key requirements that AI systems should implement in order to be deemed trustworthy, including incorporating human oversight, respect for privacy, traceability and avoiding unfair bias in decisions taken by the systems.The other report outlined policy and investment recommendations for the EU and its member states. The experts said unnecessarily prescriptive regulation should be avoided but that governments should restrict the development of automated lethal weapons and consider new rules around unjustified tracking through facial recognition or other biometric technologies.Alphabet Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai will also make a rare public appearance in Brussels next week to give a speech at a think-tank about the development of responsible AI ahead of the EU’s February announcement.(Adds more details in paragraph six, eight)To contact the reporter on this story: Natalia Drozdiak in Brussels at ndrozdiak1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Nikos ChrysolorasFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Which company just hit $1 trillion? Google it.
As Google-parent Alphabet Inc became on Thursday the fourth U.S. company to top a market value of more than $1 trillion, some funds holding its shares are wondering whether now is the time to cash in on the stock's extraordinary gains. Short interest in the stock, a measure of how many investors are betting on a price decline, is at 1%, near a 52-week high for the company and higher than competitors such as Microsoft and Facebook, according to Refinitv data. Alphabet joins Apple, Amazon.com and Microsoft as the only U.S. companies to hit $1 trillion in market value.
- The Guardian
Google owner Alphabet becomes trillion-dollar company
Google owner Alphabet becomes trillion-dollar companyTech giant is the fourth US firm to achieve the valuation – after Microsoft, Apple and Amazon
- Bloomberg
Toshiba Touts Algorithm That’s Faster Than a Supercomputer
(Bloomberg) -- Follow Bloomberg on Telegram for all the investment news and analysis you need.It’s a tantalizing prospect for traders whose success often hinges on microseconds: a desktop PC algorithm that crunches market data faster than today’s most advanced supercomputers.Japan’s Toshiba Corp. says it has the technology to make such rapid-fire calculations a reality -- not quite quantum computing, but perhaps the next best thing. The claim is being met with a mix of intrigue and skepticism at financial firms in Tokyo and around the world.Toshiba’s “Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm” is designed to harness the principles behind quantum computers without requiring the use of such machines, which currently have limited applications and can cost millions of dollars to build and keep near absolute zero temperature. Toshiba says its technology, which may also have uses outside finance, runs on PCs made from off-the-shelf components.“You can just plug it into a server and run it at room temperature,” Kosuke Tatsumura, a senior research scientist at Toshiba’s Computer & Network Systems Laboratory, said in an interview. The Tokyo-based conglomerate, while best known for its consumer electronics and nuclear reactors, has long conducted research into advanced technologies.Toshiba has said it needs a partner to adopt the algorithm for real-world use, and financial firms have taken notice as they grapple for an edge in markets increasingly dominated by machines. Banks, brokerages and asset managers have all been experimenting with quantum computing, although viable applications are generally considered to be some time away.Why Quantum Computers Will Be Super Awesome, Someday: QuickTakeArbitrage OpportunitiesToshiba said its system is capable of calculating arbitrage opportunities for currencies in microseconds. The company has hired financial professionals to work on the project and aims to complete a real-world trial by March 2021.“Finance is the most familiar application,” Toshiba Chief Executive Officer Nobuaki Kurumatani said in an interview. “But there are so many uses. This is a technology with real potential.”Toshiba’s algorithm seems to outperform rival approaches on mathematical benchmarks, but how it will perform on real-world problems is anyone’s guess. Access to the company’s backtesting in currency trading and portfolio optimization isn’t publicly available and adopting the technology to a new problem would likely require rebuilding the algorithm from scratch.“There is a lot of talk about applications of quantum computing in finance, but it’s not very clear where it would be all that necessary,” said Takanobu Mizuta, a fund manager and senior researcher at Sparx Group Co. Optimizing a portfolio is not something that needs to be done in microseconds and calculations involved in high-frequency trading, where speed counts, are not very complicated, Mizuta said.Toshiba may choose to use the algorithm for areas outside finance. Other applications could include things like plotting complex shipping and logistics routes and developing new drugs with molecular precision, according to the company.First IdeaThe idea first arose in 2015, when senior research scientist Hayato Goto was exploring how the qualities of some complex systems can suddenly change with additional input, a phenomenon he describes as bifurcation. But it took him two years, he said, to realize the discovery could be used to craft algorithms that can efficiently sift through a huge number of possibilities -- like a quantum computer without the onerous requirements to run one.Goto partnered with Tatsumura, whose semiconductor expertise was crucial in making the calculations work on multiple processors in parallel.“We will see some ideas for specific applications of quantum computing coming out over the next five years,” said Masayuki Ohzeki, an associate professor at Tohoku University whose research focuses on the technology. “But real implementation will depend on when there is a good match between improvement in performance and techniques that simplify the calculations.”Toshiba revealed its Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm in April, initially garnering little attention outside the scientific community. In October, the company announced that its model had identified potential arbitrage opportunities in currency trading in just 30 microseconds -- fast enough, it claimed, to give it a 90% chance of making profitable trades. That triggered inquiries from financial institutions in Japan and abroad, Toshiba said.Quantum ComputingInvestment banks are already eyeing quantum computing as an opportunity and a threat. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has been building an in-house research team and late last year joined forces with startup WC Ware to speed up the search for a “quantum advantage.” Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. has partnered with Ohzeki’s lab at Tohoku University to explore applications in asset management using a machine made by Canada’s D-Wave Systems Inc.“Right now, what you can do with it is still hypothetical,” said Kazuyuki Takeda, a general manager at Mizuho-DL Financial Technology Co., a research arm of one of Japan’s biggest financial groups. “It will take quite a bit of time before we have practical uses of quantum computing. At least 10 years or so.”Alphabet Inc.’s Google claimed in October that its quantum computer -- built on a custom processor with bespoke cryogenic cooling -- could perform a task in 200 seconds that would take today’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years. Researchers at IBM have countered, saying that their supercomputer can match Google’s Sycamore processor “in a matter of days.” But that cluster of machines occupies an area the size of two basketball courts inside the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In either case, the cost of quantum-like computational capability appears to still be prohibitively high for most applications.In the meantime, Toshiba is hoping it will succeed in commercializing its new algorithms -- whether in finance or elsewhere -- by delivering a computational edge with existing technology.“We give ourselves about a one-year lead for the stuff that we release publicly,” Goto said. “The more cutting-edge knowledge we have internally gives us confidence that we won’t be easily caught up with.”(Updates with expert comment and latest developments in quantum computing.)\--With assistance from Michael Patterson.To contact the reporters on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net;Grace Huang in Tokyo at xhuang66@bloomberg.net;Shoko Oda in Tokyo at soda13@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Vlad Savov, Tom RedmondFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Quanergy CEO Leaves After Driverless Tech Unicorn Stumbles
(Bloomberg) -- Quanergy Systems Inc.. said Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Louay Eldada stepped down after the driverless car technology startup failed to fulfill technical promises and questions mounted about its finances.Kevin Kennedy, who joined Quanergy’s board last April, will take over as interim CEO, it said in a statement released publicly after Bloomberg News inquired about the leadership change. Eldada also left the board, effective Jan. 13, the company said.Quanergy makes lidar, sensors that use lasers to create real-time imagery of the physical world. It’s a critical component for many autonomous cars, and Quanergy seemed uniquely positioned to capitalize on the emergence of a huge new industry. But its fortunes waned in recent years.Eldada was a central figure both in the company’s early success and its more recent troubles. He co-founded Quanergy in 2012, based on early progress on solid-state lidar, a version of the technology that promised smaller, more efficient and cheaper sensors. The company scored several partnerships with car companies and began talking to banks about an initial public offering in late 2017.But Quanergy consistently failed to hit an ambitious timeline for the development of its sensors. Industry partners and former employees said the company shipped devices that didn’t work as advertised, and employees found Eldada’s management style alternately intimidating and alienating, Bloomberg News reported in 2018. The company contested various aspects of Bloomberg’s reporting. “Quanergy has never knowingly shipped product with defects,” a spokeswoman for the company said at the time.In recent years, Quanergy has focused increasingly on mapping, security and other non-automotive applications, a shift that former employees said reflected the deteriorating prospects of the company landing large deals with autonomous vehicle makers.This wasn’t entirely due to Quanergy’s own performance. Some of the frontrunners in the autonomous driving industry, such as Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, developed their own lidar and have been slower-than-expected to deliver fully driverless vehicles. Enthusiasm for lidar companies among investors has been cooling for several years.But there were also mounting complaints about Eldada’s management. Former employees have said Quanergy’s leadership misled them about equity options they received as part of their compensation. Akram Benmbarek, a former Quanergy executive, sued the company last May over the way it handled his stock options. Chief Financial Officer Patrick Archambault said last year that Quanergy had reviewed pending litigation with a former employee and determined that it was “completely without merit.“ In interviews in 2018, Eldada dismissed concerns around the company’s finances. In a statement in October 2018, the company said it had secured new funding in a round led by a “global top-tier fund” at a valuation exceeding $2 billion. He said the “level of happiness is high” among employees.Much of the new financing came from Eldada and Tianyue Yu, another Quanergy founder, according to people familiar with the company who asked not to be named discussing private business dealings. Quanergy initiated a $75 million financing round in March 2018, and managed to raise $25 million, according to a regulatory filing later that year. Another filing said Quanergy began a $150 million offering that October and raised just over $20 million.Quanergy didn’t respond to requests for comment beyond its statement, which touted its sensors designed for the security and transportation sectors. Eldada, it said, “will continue his support of the company as a consultant and evangelist.”(Updates with more details after third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Liana Baker.To contact the reporters on this story: Joshua Brustein in New York at jbrustein@bloomberg.net;Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair BarrFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Alphabet Joins Apple and Microsoft in the $1 Trillion Club
(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc. hit a milestone on Thursday, as a rally in the stock took it above a $1 trillion valuation for the first time, solidifying the dominance of technology and internet stocks as the biggest titans of Wall Street.Shares rallied in the last half hour of trading to close at $1,450.16, up 0.8% on the day.With the gain, Alphabet became the newest member of an elite club to trade with the historic 13-digit market capitalization. Only two other U.S. names are past the threshold: Apple Inc., valued at about $1.38 trillion, and Microsoft Corp., at $1.27 trillion. Globally, the list is topped by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, which went public last month and currently has a market cap of about $1.8 trillion.Amazon.com Inc. flirted with the level last year, but the e-commerce company would have to rise more than 7% for its current valuation of $931.1 billion to return above $1 trillion.These four companies are by far the largest on Wall Street, and their huge size gives them an outsized impact on overall market direction. Together, they represent more than 15% of the weight of the S&P 500.The rest of the market is, at best, hundreds of billions of dollars away from trillion-dollar valuations. The fifth-largest U.S. stock by market cap, Facebook Inc., currently has a valuation of $632.9 billion. The biggest company outside the tech or internet sector is Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in sixth place, valued around $559 billion.Alphabet’s move above the level is just the latest step higher for the Google parent company. Shares are up about 40% from a June low, with the rally largely fueled by optimism over its 2020 prospects, particularly with respect to ad revenue. Alphabet will report fourth-quarter results on Feb. 3.Among recent commentary, Evercore ISI raised its price target on the stock to $1,600 from $1,350, writing that it expects the company will continue “to compound on its defensible dominance in Search and video advertising with YouTube.” Earlier this week, Deutsche Bank raised its own target to a Street-high view of $1,735, writing that the stock “trades too cheaply.” The firm cited more ad product launches, an expanded stock buyback program, and “improving competitiveness in the Cloud business.”To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven Fromm, Jeran WittensteinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Factbox: Big Tech and their carbon pledges
Microsoft said it would be carbon negative by 2030, and that by 2050 it hopes to have sequestrated enough carbon to account for all the direct emissions the company has ever made. The Windows operating system maker said it would fund the program with an internal carbon fee, and that its new climate innovation fund would invest $1 billion over the next four years into new technologies to reduce its carbon footprint. Microsoft expects to generate 16 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020, including indirect emissions from activities like corporate travel.
- Bloomberg
Pelosi Calls Facebook ‘Shameful’ in Allowing Misinformation
(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Facebook Inc. “very irresponsible” and “shameful” for the way the company allows false information to spread on its social media platform.She said that during the last election Facebook made no attempts to look at Russia’s use of the platform to spread disinformation and doesn’t view it as their obligation to try to stop it in the future.“They intend to be accomplices with misleading the American people,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday in response to a question about whether Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executive have too much power. “I think their behavior is shameful.”Companies including Facebook, Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have been under pressure to take action to prevent the spread of false and misleading information on their sites. Facebook’s new policy to address “deepfake” videos has come under fire from some lawmakers and disinformation experts who say it fails to address other kinds of online manipulation.QuickTake: How Deepfakes Make Disinformation More Real Than EverThe California Democrat was asked about the social media company, given its proximity to her San Francisco district.“All they want are their tax cuts and no antitrust action against them, and they schmooze this administration in that regard,” Pelosi said. “They have been very irresponsible.”The company is facing antitrust probes by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department, as well as a majority of state attorneys general led by New York’s Letitia James.Facebook declined to comment on Pelosi’s remarks. The company has been working to better detect instances of foreign governments trying to manipulate U.S. users, and in recent years has taken down several campaigns similar to Russia’s effort during the 2016 presidential campaign.But Facebook has stopped short of fact-checking politicians, saying last week that it would allow candidates to continue to lie in their ads. Facebook executives have said the company shouldn’t determine truth or falsity in political speech. Instead, Facebook is putting political ads in a public archive, where voters can see who paid for which messages.(Updates with context on Facebook actions in the final two paragraphs.)\--With assistance from Ben Brody and Sarah Frier.To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, ;Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Alistair BarrFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- The Guardian
Google Nest Mini review: better bass and recycled plastic
Google Nest Mini review: better bass and recycled plasticUpgrade keeps what is good and improves sound for Google’s smallest, cheapest smart speaker
- Bloomberg
Turkey Removes Ban on Wikipedia After Almost Three Years
(Bloomberg) -- Wikipedia is available in Turkey again after a nearly three-year ban.The Turkish government agency in charge of internet technologies lifted the ban after the nation’s top court ruled last month that the restriction violated free speech.A detailed explanation of the court’s ruling was published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday, prompting regulators to restore access to the website.“As access to Wikipedia is still actively being restored across Turkey, some users in Turkey may experience restored access sooner or later than others,'’ the website said in a statementThe site was blocked in April 2017 after Wikipedia refused to remove entries that accused the government of cooperating with terrorist organizations.The Turkish government has blocked access to other popular websites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook in the past, for allegedly promoting terrorist propaganda or insults against Turkish political figures.The limits on free speech have been denounced by opposition parties as well as the European Union and human rights groups.To contact the reporter on this story: Asli Kandemir in Istanbul at akandemir@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stefania Bianchi at sbianchi10@bloomberg.net, ;Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Amy TeibelFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
China Will Drive Mobile Spending to Record $380 Billion in 2020
(Bloomberg) -- Mobile app spending and usage hit a record in 2019 and show no signs of tapering off this year as faster cellular connections and more big-name video streaming services come online, industry tracker App Annie says.China should again prove the biggest driver of consumption on everything from video streaming to games operated by social media giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., propelling spending 23% higher to $380 billion this year, App Annie researchers said. China made up half of all consumer spending in 2019 and was among the fastest-growing markets when it came to time spent on a mobile device. The global average is now 3.7 hours per person per day, according to the researchers.Among the headline grabbers of 2019 was ByteDance Inc.’s video-sharing platforms including TikTok, which racked up 14.5 billion hours of time watched and grew its audience 200% in the fourth quarter. Nine out of every 10 minutes spent in the app have come from China, App Annie said. Google’s YouTube Music racked up even more impressive numbers, growing worldwide active users 870% over the 24 months ending Dec. 19.“Year 2020 will mark the beginning of a mobile-first decade,” said Cindy Deng, managing director for Asia-Pacific at App Annie. “It’s imperative that brands start to adapt their strategy to this growing generation, or risk being left behind.”Tinder, Netflix and Tencent Lead Record-Breaking Year for AppsIn the past year, mobile apps accumulated $120 billion of global consumer spending, with games accounting for 72% of that. Advertising brought in $190 billion, said App Annie, forecasting the number to grow to $240 billion this year.Generation Z -- the cohort born after 1997 for whom mobile has become the first screen -- is fueling the surge. Income from games continued to grow in 2019, when 1,121 mobile titles brought in more than $5 million in earnings, up from 959 two years prior. 139 games went beyond $100 million in revenue for the year, up from 88 in 2017.But non-gaming apps grew even faster, led primarily by subscription-based revenue models and a rabid appetite for entertainment.In the U.S., App Annie found Apple Inc.’s iOS platform commanded 79% of non-gaming app revenue versus Google’s Android claiming 21%, with the majority on both platforms coming from subscriptions to the likes of Tinder and Netflix Inc.The use of mobile finance apps doubled between 2017 and 2019, with users accessing such services 1.1 trillion times in the past year. This has been driven by mobile-first countries like China, India and Brazil, while Indonesia, Japan and Russia are growing fastest when it comes to monthly active users. App Annie analysts said fintech apps designed specifically for mobile screens, such as Monzo or PayPay, were outperforming traditional banks because of their greater ease of use.Entertainment apps also saw a 120% rise in use over the past two years, and in 2019 Netflix was joined by Apple TV+ and Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+ subscription streaming offerings. The competition will intensify as more mobile-centric services emerge: former HP Inc. Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman and film veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi, for instance, offers different video perspectives depending on how a phone is held.Streaming content looks likely to be the big driver for the adoption of 5G networking among mobile users, as App Annie found it growing universally around the globe. On Android phones over the past two years, India streamed nearly 80% more, France and Japan were up more than 50% and the U.S., Canada, and Indonesia all grew by more than 40%. Data consumption on streaming sports was up 80% over the same period, indicating a bandwidth-hungry market that’s far from hitting its consumption ceiling.To contact the reporter on this story: Vlad Savov in Tokyo at vsavov5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Vlad SavovFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
