New York, Feb 16, 2026, 10:29 (EST) — The market has closed.
Alphabet’s Class C shares (GOOG.O) slipped 1.1%, closing at $306.02 in the previous session. U.S. markets were closed Monday for Presidents Day, with trading picking up again Tuesday.
Some investors are starting to lose patience with the “AI trade,” pressing for faster evidence that those huge outlays will actually boost profits. Alphabet has shed around $87.96 billion in market value since the beginning of 2026, now sitting close to $3.7 trillion, according to Reuters data. Reuters
Alphabet put out a forecast earlier this month, projecting 2026 capital spending at $175 billion to $185 billion—a figure that turned heads in the sector. Capex, industry shorthand for capital spending, refers to money poured into assets like data centres and chips.
Alphabet slipped on Friday, trailing gains in both the S&P 500 and the Dow, which ended the day in the green. That’s four straight sessions in the red for the stock, still trading under its recent 52-week peak, according to .
Investors keep writing checks for expansion. Last week, Alphabet tapped markets with a $31.51 billion global bond sale—featuring a 100-year piece—offering scant safeguards to buyers. “What stands out is what’s missing,” said Julia Khandoshko, the broker Mind Money’s CEO. Enormous capex demands for this AI infrastructure wave, noted CreditSights senior analyst Jordan Chalfin. Reuters
European regulators are digging into how Google profits from Search, with the European Commission raising concerns to advertisers that the tech giant might be “artificially increasing” the clearing price in its Search ad auctions, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. Google, for its part, maintains that Search ad prices come from a real-time auction factoring in competition and ad quality. Advertisers have until March 2 to submit their responses. Reuters
Publishers aren’t standing down. The European Publishers Council lodged an EU antitrust complaint against Google’s AI Overviews last week, saying the autogenerated Search summaries threaten the business model that keeps the open web afloat. “AI Overviews and AI Mode fundamentally undermine the economic compact that has sustained the open web,” EPC chairman Christian Van Thillo said. Google, for its part, dismissed the allegations as inaccurate and pointed to existing publisher controls over their content. Reuters
Looking ahead, attention swings back to rates as markets reopen, and tech stocks—always jittery when bond yields shift—could feel the heat. The Fed’s last meeting minutes drop Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET. Over in chips, Nvidia will share its quarterly numbers after the bell on Feb. 25.
The risk is clear enough: higher spending now, with returns taking longer to show up. Reuters tallies combined 2026 capex for Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta at no less than $630 billion. BNY’s Jason Granet called the 100-year deal both “representative and indicative” of the scale of investment pouring into markets and tech. Reuters
This week, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Demis Hassabis, who leads Google DeepMind, are both set for appearances at India’s AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. They’ll join OpenAI representatives and other industry names. Hassabis has a speaking slot on Thursday.
