Mountain View, March 27, 2026, 05:09 PDT
- Nordea bumped up one Alphabet share class, trimmed the other. BDF Gestion and Tompkins Financial—both scaled back smaller Alphabet holdings in their Q4 filings.
- The filings, which show positions as of Dec. 31, land just as Alphabet shares come under pressure—legal challenges for Google and a pullback across tech are weighing on the stock.
Institutional action in Alphabet turned out to be a mixed bag in the fourth-quarter filings: Nordea Investment Management picked up more of one share class, but both BDF Gestion and Tompkins Financial pulled back, paring their stakes. Then this week, Nordea’s latest disclosure revealed a reduction in Alphabet’s alternate listed share class, which complicates any straightforward take on how investors are feeling.
The story here is plain. Alphabet’s stock isn’t just riding the AI wave anymore: a jury in Los Angeles just held Google and Meta responsible in a youth social-media harm trial, while the Nasdaq has dropped into correction territory as traders rethink risk exposure in big tech.
Important to note the timing here: Form 13F only captures equity holdings at the end of each quarter, not live trades. Nordea’s most recent 13F went in on Jan. 8—well ahead of the latest drop—so the disclosures don’t reflect moves made since. The headlines surface old positions, not current trades.
Nordea upped its GOOG stake by 396,746 shares, a 4.9% boost, bringing the total to 8.56 million—valued around $2.69 billion. On the flip side, the firm trimmed its GOOGL holdings by 20.1%, now holding 9.26 million shares for an estimated $2.90 billion. That puts Nordea’s reported year-end Alphabet exposure at about $5.6 billion between the two classes.
BDF Gestion unloaded 7,081 shares of GOOG in the fourth quarter, shaving its position down by 6.2% to 106,262 shares—around $33.3 million in value. Tompkins Financial pared back as well, selling 2,173 GOOGL shares and bringing its total down 2.9% to 73,302 shares, or about $22.9 million.
Institutional interest in Alphabet hasn’t faded. Back in February, the company flagged a possible jump in 2026 capital expenditures, placing the range between $175 billion and $185 billion after Google Cloud posted a 48% revenue surge in the December quarter—outpacing Microsoft Azure’s gains. CEO Sundar Pichai pointed to AI investments as the force behind what he called growth “across the board.” Reuters
But here’s the rub: it’s the spending. Mark Shmulik from Bernstein points out that the big tech names are pouring more than a trillion dollars into 2026 investments. Morgan Stanley figures cited by Reuters Breakingviews put Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft’s combined data center and AI chip outlays at roughly $630 billion—just for this year.
Alphabet’s Class A shares were set to drop another 3.4% to $280.92 before trading began Friday. That’s after losing 3.4% the day before—Thursday saw Meta plunge 8%, and the Nasdaq slipped into correction territory.
The real wild card is the courtroom. On Wednesday, a Los Angeles jury sided against Google and Meta, ordering them to pay $6 million in damages—a verdict both companies intend to challenge. Legal analysts suggest this case might push the boundaries of how much protection U.S. law gives to tech platforms facing lawsuits tied to their product design. “These decisions don’t break the business model today, but they raise the range of outcomes around future cash flows and margin structure,” Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments, told Reuters. Reuters
Right now, filings suggest tweaks rather than any pullback. Big managers continue to hold substantial stakes in Alphabet, though the straightforward narrative around Google’s AI ambitions is hitting a tougher market. Investors want evidence of returns and aren’t as tolerant of legal risk as before.
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