Alphabet Inc.’s Class C shares (NASDAQ: GOOG) are trading lower on Tuesday as investors digest a fresh wave of regulatory actions in both Europe and the United States—just weeks after the Google parent delivered a record quarter and as Wall Street pushes price targets as high as $400.
This article looks at Alphabet Class C stock today, the latest news from December 9, 2025, recent earnings, analyst forecasts, and what all of this could mean for long‑term investors.
Alphabet (GOOG) stock price today
As of early afternoon on December 9, 2025, Alphabet Class C shares trade around $314–315, down roughly 2–2.5% on the day. That leaves GOOG only a few percentage points below its 52‑week high near $329 and more than 120% above its one‑year low around $143. [1]
Across its A and C share classes, Alphabet’s total equity value sits in the mid‑$3 trillion range, making it one of the world’s most valuable companies. [2]
Based on trailing earnings per share of just over $10, Alphabet trades at roughly 30–31 times earnings and now offers a small but growing dividend yield of around 0.3%. [3]
New headlines on December 9, 2025: Why Alphabet is under pressure
1. EU opens a fresh antitrust investigation into Google’s AI
The biggest headline today is a new European Commission antitrust probe into how Google uses online content to power its AI products—including AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, and the Gemini model family. [4]
Regulators are examining whether Google:
- Uses web publishers’ and YouTube creators’ content to train and run its AI models without fair compensation or a meaningful opt‑out,
- Gives its own AI services preferential treatment in Search, and
- Restricts rivals from accessing similar data, potentially tilting the AI race in its favor.
The probe builds on growing concern about a “Google Zero” scenario in which AI answers keep users on Google properties and starve publishers of traffic and ad revenue. [5]
If regulators conclude that Google abused a dominant position, the company could face fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue, implying a theoretical hit of tens of billions of dollars. [6]
2. Final U.S. search antitrust judgment tightens default‑deal rules
Today’s news lands just days after a U.S. federal judge entered final judgment in the long‑running Department of Justice case over Google’s search monopoly. The ruling forces Google to limit all default search and AI‑app contracts to one year and to renegotiate those arrangements annually. [7]
That directly affects lucrative deals with Apple, Samsung and other device makers, which have historically locked in Google Search as the default option on billions of devices for many years at a time. Re‑opening those deals every year injects more uncertainty and potentially more competition into a key distribution channel.
3. Ongoing settlement costs and app‑store scrutiny
Separately, Google is preparing payouts from a $700 million settlement related to U.S. state allegations that its Play Store policies were anti‑competitive. About $630 million will go to a consumer fund and $70 million to states and territories. [8]
While modest relative to Alphabet’s earnings power, the settlement underscores how app‑store fees, ad tech and AI are all under intense scrutiny simultaneously.
4. Political and institutional trading moves
A MarketBeat disclosure today notes that U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (through a family trust) sold between $15,001 and $50,000 of GOOG stock in late November, alongside sales in other large‑cap names. [9]
At the same time, institutional filings show heavyweight asset manager State Street Corp reported adding GOOG shares, while long‑time investor Fayez Sarofim & Co trimmed its stake slightly but still counts Alphabet among its top holdings. [10]
These flows don’t change the investment case on their own, but they add context to the mixed short‑term sentiment around the stock.
Fundamentals: Record Q3 results and accelerating AI demand
Regulatory clouds are gathering just as Alphabet posts some of the strongest numbers in its history.
In Q3 2025, Alphabet reported: [11]
- Revenue of $102.3 billion, up 16% year over year (15% in constant currency) – the company’s first‑ever $100 billion quarter.
- Google Services revenue (Search, YouTube, hardware, subscriptions) of $87.1 billion, up 14%.
- Google Search & other revenue of $56.6 billion, and YouTube ad revenue of $10.3 billion, both growing about 15%.
- Subscriptions, platforms & devices (which includes YouTube Premium and Google One) rising 21% to $12.9 billion.
Google Cloud once again outpaced the rest of the business, with revenue up about 34% to $15.2 billion and a backlog that has surged to around $155 billion, helped by an influx of enterprise AI deals. [12]
On the bottom line, operating income increased 9%, and operating margin came in around 30.5%. Excluding a €3.5 billion European Commission fine booked in the quarter, Alphabet says operating income would have risen 22% with margin just under 34%. Net income jumped 33%, and diluted EPS climbed 35% to $2.87. [13]
Management now expects 2025 capital expenditures—driven largely by AI data center build‑out—to land between $91 billion and $93 billion, up from prior plans. [14]
In his post‑earnings remarks, CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted how Gemini and AI Overviews are now deeply woven into Search, Ads, Google Cloud, and Workspace, claiming that AI has moved from experimentation to visible revenue and margin impact across the portfolio. [15]
Alphabet’s dividend and shareholder returns
Alphabet has increasingly been signaling its evolution from pure growth story to maturing cash machine:
- The board maintained its quarterly cash dividend at $0.21 per share for all Class A, B and C shares, payable December 15, 2025 to shareholders of record as of December 8 (ex‑dividend date). [16]
- That equates to an annualized $0.84 per share and a payout ratio of roughly 8%, leaving ample capacity for continued AI investment and share repurchases. [17]
Compared with traditional dividend stocks, the yield is small. But for investors who care about total return and capital discipline, the dividend is another sign that Alphabet sees its cash flows as durable enough to support regular payouts without compromising growth.
Wall Street’s latest forecasts for Alphabet Class C (GOOG)
Despite the near‑term drop on regulatory headlines, analysts remain broadly bullish on Alphabet.
Because research houses typically publish targets for Alphabet as a whole (often under the GOOGL ticker), those price objectives are generally applied to both Class A (GOOGL) and Class C (GOOG) shares.
Key points from recent research and surveys:
- Across roughly 40–50 covering analysts, Alphabet carries a consensus rating around “Buy” to “Strong Buy.” [18]
- MarketBeat’s aggregation shows an average 12‑month price target of about $310–313, with a range from roughly $198 to $380. With GOOG trading near $314, that implies little upside on average but a wide spread of views. [19]
- StockAnalysis reports a similar average target just above $300, again with a high estimate of $400 and a low near $190, reinforcing that valuation opinions are diverging as the stock hits record territory. [20]
- In the last week, multiple outlets have highlighted a Street‑high $400 target from Pivotal Research, which reiterated a Buy rating and argued that Alphabet is beginning to separate itself from AI rivals, with search described as a “resilient cash cow” and AI investments expected to lower long‑term unit costs. [21]
At $400, the implied upside from current levels is on the order of 25–27%, assuming no major fundamental or regulatory surprises.
At the same time, at least one high‑profile recent analysis has warned that Alphabet’s share price is running ahead of its fundamentals, arguing that the AI narrative may be masking risks in ad pricing, capex intensity and regulatory pushback. [22]
GOOG vs GOOGL: What’s special about Class C shares?
From a business‑exposure perspective, GOOG and GOOGL are almost identical—both represent economic ownership in Alphabet’s operations.
The main difference is voting rights:
- Class A (GOOGL): one vote per share.
- Class C (GOOG): no voting rights except in very limited legal circumstances. [23]
Because they lack votes, Class C shares historically trade at a small discount to Class A, although arbitrage tends to keep the gap narrow and sometimes GOOG even trades slightly higher. [24]
For most individual investors who aren’t large enough to influence corporate decisions, the choice between GOOG and GOOGL often comes down to:
- Price and liquidity on the day of purchase,
- Portfolio constraints (some funds prefer voting shares), and
- Personal preference about having a formal say in shareholder meetings.
Recent filings also showed Berkshire Hathaway initiated a roughly $5 billion stake in the voting GOOGL shares, which has drawn extra attention to the share‑class distinction and signaled confidence in Alphabet’s long‑term prospects from one of the world’s most closely watched investors. [25]
Growth story: AI, cloud – and even space data centers
Despite the regulatory backdrop, much of the bullish thesis for Alphabet Class C stock still revolves around AI scale and monetization.
AI and Search. Google’s AI Overviews and Gemini‑powered Search experiences are increasingly prominent, and management says AI is already boosting advertiser ROI and user engagement, not just adding costs. [26]
Google Cloud. With a cloud backlog of $155 billion, and more billion‑dollar AI deals signed in the first nine months of 2025 than in the previous two years combined, Google Cloud is becoming a major profit and cash‑flow driver rather than a drag. [27]
YouTube and subscriptions. YouTube ads, YouTube Premium and Google One subscriptions all grew at double‑digit rates in Q3, providing a more diversified revenue base beyond classic keyword search. [28]
Frontier bets. To support AI workloads, Alphabet is pushing the envelope on infrastructure. One of the more eye‑catching initiatives is the “Suncatcher” project—plans to deploy space‑based data centers by around 2027, which CEO Sundar Pichai recently reaffirmed and which even drew praise as “interesting” from Elon Musk. [29]
Taken together, bulls argue that Alphabet has all the pieces to be a dominant AI model builder and platform provider, from data and distribution to custom chips and cloud capacity. [30]
Major risks investors need to watch
For all of its strengths, today’s news highlights why Alphabet is not a low‑risk story.
- Regulatory and legal risk
- The new EU AI probe, the final U.S. search antitrust judgment, and app‑store settlements all show regulators are increasingly willing to impose structural remedies, not just fines. [31]
- If regulators force changes to defaults, data access or business models, it could slow growth, raise costs, or cap margins in Search, YouTube and Cloud.
- AI economics and competition
- AI models are expensive to train and run; Alphabet’s guidance for $90+ billion of capex this year underscores how capital‑intensive the race has become. [32]
- The company faces fierce competition from OpenAI–Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and others; if monetization lags investments, valuation multiples could compress.
- Valuation risk after a huge run‑up
- Alphabet’s Class A shares are up more than 60% year‑to‑date, significantly outpacing the S&P 500, and GOOG has similarly surged. [33]
- Trading around 30x trailing earnings with modest consensus upside from many analysts, the stock may be sensitive to any disappointment on growth or regulation.
- Key‑person and strategic risk
- Alphabet’s strategy is heavily shaped by a relatively small leadership group, and by long‑term bets like Waymo, quantum computing and experimental hardware. If management misallocates capital, it could dull returns even if the core ad business stays healthy. [34]
Is Alphabet Class C (GOOG) stock attractive after today’s news?
On December 9, 2025, the picture for Alphabet Class C shares looks like this:
- Business performance: Record revenue and profit, broad‑based double‑digit growth, and strong AI‑driven momentum in both Ads and Cloud. [35]
- Shareholder returns: A burgeoning dividend policy and ongoing buybacks signal management’s confidence in durable cash flows. [36]
- Valuation: A premium multiple for a premium franchise—roughly 30x trailing earnings with Street targets clustered around the low‑ to mid‑$300s, but with a notable bull case up at $400. [37]
- Risks: A front‑row seat in virtually every major global tech regulation battle, from search defaults and app stores to AI content usage.
For short‑term traders, today’s decline reflects how quickly regulators can swing sentiment in a richly valued mega‑cap. For long‑term investors, the key question is whether Alphabet’s AI moat and cash generation can outgrow the regulatory drag and justify its valuation over the next five to ten years.
Nothing in the current news flow definitively answers that question, but it does sharpen the trade‑off: Alphabet is simultaneously one of the clearest winners of the AI era and one of the most heavily scrutinized companies on the planet.
References
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