On paper, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) did almost everything investors could have asked for.
Google Cloud delivered another blockbuster quarter. Search remained resilient despite growing competition from AI chatbots. Profitability improved, and management continued rolling out AI across nearly every major product.
Yet instead of celebrating, Wall Street sent the stock lower, down from $348 to $319 as of this writing. That may seem confusing at first. But the sell-off wasn’t really about Alphabet’s latest quarter.