NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2025, 9:55 a.m. ET — U.S. stock market closed (weekend)
Alphabet Inc.’s Class C shares (NASDAQ: GOOG) head into the final trading days of 2025 with investors balancing two forces that have defined the year for Big Tech: powerful AI-driven momentum, and rising scrutiny over the cost and complexity of scaling the infrastructure to support it.
With U.S. markets closed Sunday, attention shifts to what matters when trading resumes: year-end positioning, the Federal Reserve’s next signals, and a weekend news cycle that again puts Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo under a spotlight—alongside ongoing debate over Alphabet’s bold push to lock down energy supply for AI-era data centers.
Where GOOG stock stands heading into the next session
GOOG ended Friday’s post-holiday session at $314.96, down 0.22% on the day, after trading between $313.72 and $316.56. Volume was about 6.69 million shares, lighter than typical for a mega-cap name during a holiday week. [1]
Alphabet’s valuation remains firmly in mega-cap territory: data aggregators tracking the company’s share count and pricing put Alphabet’s market capitalization at roughly $3.8 trillion around Friday’s close. [2]
For investors newer to the ticker: GOOG represents Alphabet’s Class C shares (no voting rights). Alphabet’s Class A shares trade as GOOGL (with voting rights). The two typically move in near lockstep because they represent the same underlying business.
The market backdrop: why Monday’s tone matters for mega-cap tech
Alphabet enters the next session with U.S. equities near record levels, but with late-December trading conditions that can exaggerate moves. In Friday’s light, post-Christmas session, all three major indexes finished just slightly lower, snapping a short rally while still holding near highs—an environment that often leaves stock-specific headlines and positioning flows with outsized influence. [3]
Looking to the week ahead, Reuters reported investors are watching for a strong finish to 2025 with the S&P 500 near the psychologically important 7,000 level, and with Fed meeting minutes expected to shape rate expectations. The report noted the Fed cut rates by 75 basis points over its last three meetings of 2025 to a 3.50%–3.75% range, while investors continue debating the pace of further cuts in 2026. [4]
For GOOG holders, this macro setup matters because Alphabet has been treated as both:
- an AI “leader” trade (sensitive to risk appetite), and
- a cash-flow compounder (sensitive to rates and valuation multiples).
The biggest Alphabet-related headline in the last 24–48 hours: Waymo faces fresh questions on crisis readiness
One of the most market-relevant Alphabet developments over the past two days wasn’t about Search or Cloud—it was about Waymo’s operational resilience, and what regulators may demand as robotaxis scale.
A Reuters analysis published Saturday examined how a San Francisco power outage earlier this month led to Waymo vehicles stalling at intersections and snarling traffic, renewing calls for stricter rules around how robotaxi companies use remote human assistance (“teleoperation”) during emergencies. [5]
Reuters quoted Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor and autonomous-technology expert, warning regulators must require proof that larger-scale disaster scenarios can be handled safely if companies mishandle events like blackouts. [6]
The same Reuters piece also cited Missy Cummings, director of the George Mason University Autonomy and Robotics Center and a former adviser to the U.S. road safety regulator, arguing the federal government needs to regulate remote operations and ensure backup capabilities during catastrophic failures. [7]
Waymo has said it is implementing fleet-wide updates to provide vehicles with “specific power outage context” so they can navigate more decisively, and California regulators have said they are looking into the incident, per Reuters. [8]
Why it matters for GOOG stock: Waymo sits inside Alphabet’s “Other Bets,” which investors often treat as long-dated optionality. But repeated high-profile operational challenges—especially those that invite new regulation—can reshape expectations for how quickly Waymo can expand, how much it costs to run, and how soon it can meaningfully contribute to consolidated profitability.
Robotaxis “went viral” in 2025—and that cuts both ways for Alphabet
A separate weekend narrative gaining traction is cultural visibility: robotaxis are becoming mainstream conversation—and Waymo is front and center.
Business Insider reported Sunday that robotaxis became culturally prominent in 2025, highlighting Alphabet-backed Waymo as having a standout year—citing expanded operations and growing public exposure—while also underscoring that viral mishaps and mixed consumer sentiment continue to weigh on public trust. The story included commentary from Arturo Siguenza, Waymo’s brand and creative strategy manager, about efforts to broaden exposure to Waymo beyond the cities where it currently operates. [9]
For investors, the key takeaway is that awareness is rising fast, but so are expectations. As Waymo scales, the market’s “option value” argument increasingly collides with very real questions about incident response, safety validation, and regulatory frameworks.
The AI power play still in focus: Alphabet’s Intersect deal and what it signals
While not a last-48-hours announcement, Alphabet’s $4.75 billion agreement to acquire clean-energy developer Intersect continues to shape the current discussion around GOOG because it goes straight to the core constraint of the AI boom: power.
Alphabet announced it would buy Intersect for $4.75 billion in cash plus assumed debt, taking ownership of Intersect’s energy and data-center projects in development or under construction—while leaving certain operating assets in Texas and California outside the acquisition structure. [10]
Reuters reported Intersect has $15 billion of assets operating or under construction, and projects representing roughly 10.8 gigawatts of power expected to be online or in development by 2028. [11]
AP also framed the deal as a direct response to AI-driven electricity demand, with Intersect operating independently after closing. [12]
Why this matters now: Alphabet’s AI growth thesis increasingly looks like an infrastructure thesis. Investors aren’t just modeling product adoption and ad monetization—they’re modeling electricity access, data-center buildout velocity, and capex discipline. The Intersect transaction is being interpreted as Alphabet trying to “de-risk” a hard bottleneck.
Forecasts and analyst-style outlooks: where expectations cluster for 2026
Even with GOOG up sharply in 2025, a steady stream of end-of-year research and “what to expect in 2026” pieces are trying to answer the same question: is Alphabet’s rally already pricing in the upside from AI and Cloud, or is there more runway?
Consensus targets and the “range of outcomes”
A Forbes analysis published Dec. 26 pointed to a wide spread of outcomes, citing a price target range of roughly $268 to $432 and a median target around $334. [13]
That range matters because it reflects an unusually polarized debate for a mega-cap: bulls see AI and Cloud margin leverage compounding, while skeptics focus on capex, competitive pressure in AI assistants, and the lingering tail risks from regulation.
A detailed bull/base/bear framing for 2026
Trefis (Dec. 26) argued Alphabet enters 2026 with three engines—Cloud, AI monetization, and Waymo scaling—while emphasizing that heavy infrastructure spending can suppress near-term EPS growth even if revenue remains strong. The same analysis outlined:
- a bull case target around $360–$375,
- a base case around $310–$335, and
- a bear case around $264–$270 (including the possibility of tougher antitrust remedies). [14]
Valuation snapshot investors are watching
Market data services commonly list Alphabet’s valuation multiples in the high-level range investors debate most: Yahoo Finance’s GOOG snapshot around Friday’s close showed a market cap near $3.79T and a trailing P/E around 31 (definitions vary by provider). [15]
If the exchange is closed: what GOOG investors should know before the next session
With trading paused until the next U.S. session, investors typically focus on what can change the narrative quickly—especially in thin year-end conditions:
- Macro catalysts can overpower stock-specific stories (briefly).
Reuters highlighted Fed minutes as a key upcoming driver, alongside year-end portfolio shifts that can cause volatility when liquidity is thinner than normal. [16] - Waymo headlines can shift “Other Bets” sentiment fast.
The latest Reuters reporting and analysis makes clear the debate is moving toward regulation of remote operations and emergency-response readiness—issues that can affect scaling timelines and costs. [17] - Intersect is a reminder that AI winners may also be capex-heavy utilities-in-disguise.
Alphabet’s strategy to secure power and data-center infrastructure can support long-term AI growth, but investors will keep pressing for evidence that returns will catch up with spending. [18] - Watch GOOG’s proximity to key highs/lows into year-end positioning.
Several market data trackers list GOOG’s recent ceiling near the $328–$329 area (recent all-time highs) and a 52-week low in the $140s, underlining just how far the stock has already traveled in 2025. [19]
The bottom line for Alphabet (GOOG) heading into the next trading day
GOOG heads into the next session with a powerful 2025 narrative—AI momentum, improving cloud credibility, and optionality from Waymo—but also with the kind of late-cycle questions that tend to dominate when valuations are rich and expectations are high: How resilient is the autonomous strategy? How defensible is AI monetization? And how efficiently can Alphabet convert massive infrastructure spending into durable profit growth?
With the market closed today, investors will be watching for any additional weekend developments—especially on Waymo and regulation—before liquidity returns and year-end flows set the tone for the final stretch of 2025. [20]
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. finance.yahoo.com, 3. www.reuters.com, 4. www.reuters.com, 5. www.reuters.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.reuters.com, 8. www.reuters.com, 9. www.businessinsider.com, 10. www.reuters.com, 11. www.reuters.com, 12. apnews.com, 13. www.forbes.com, 14. www.trefis.com, 15. finance.yahoo.com, 16. www.reuters.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. www.reuters.com, 19. www.investing.com, 20. www.reuters.com
