New York, Feb 10, 2026, 10:16 a.m. EST — Regular session.
- Alphabet’s Class C shares (GOOG) fell in morning trade as debt and regulatory headlines pile up
- Alphabet sold $20 billion in bonds as Big Tech spending on AI infrastructure stays heavy
- Traders are eyeing U.S. jobs data on Feb. 11 and CPI on Feb. 13 for rate cues
Alphabet Inc’s non-voting Class C shares (GOOG) were down about 1.9% at $318.37 in morning trade on Tuesday, trimming the company’s market value to roughly $2.9 trillion.
The slide comes as Alphabet leans more on debt to fund its artificial-intelligence build-out, a shift that is drawing a harder look from both equity and credit investors. Regulators and publishers are also circling the way AI is reshaping search, with the risk that new features invite new rules.
Alphabet said it sold $20 billion of bonds in seven tranches, tapping the market to fund AI infrastructure as Big Tech pushes capital spending higher. The notes mature between 2029 and 2066, and Alphabet is planning its first sterling offering that may include a rare 100-year bond, a regulatory filing showed; capital spending by Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta is expected to total at least $630 billion this year. “Century bonds are usually the preserve of governments or regulated utilities,” said Lale Akoner, global market analyst at eToro, arguing the demand signals investors will take long-dated AI risk for now. 1
In Europe, Google was hit with an antitrust complaint from the European Publishers Council over AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries that can appear at the top of search results. EPC chairman Christian Van Thillo called it about “stopping a dominant gatekeeper,” saying the feature risks “undermin[ing] the economic compact” that has supported online publishing, while the European Commission is already investigating whether Google is imposing unfair trading conditions on publishers. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 2
Alphabet also faces a steadier drumbeat of legal fights tied to branding and AI tools. Autodesk sued Google over the use of the “Flow” name for AI-enabled software used in film and TV production, according to a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court. 3
The bond sale fits a broader rush by AI-heavy companies to lock in funding for data centers and chips. Barclays analysts expect U.S. corporate bond issuance to reach $2.46 trillion in 2026, and a high-yield bond portfolio manager cited “one of the biggest capex spends” of a lifetime; Karthik Nandyal, co-founder of CredCore, said AI has “eaten in to cash flows” in parts of the software market and forced investors to rework assumptions. 4
Other megacaps were mixed in early trading, with Microsoft up about 2.0%, Amazon up about 0.8% and Meta down about 0.4%, a reminder that investors are picking their spots even inside the same AI-spending cohort.
But the setup can still bite. A bigger debt load and a longer payback period could pressure free cash flow if ad growth softens, while any regulatory move that forces changes to search features could hit traffic and pricing power in ways that are hard to model.
Next up, traders will watch the delayed U.S. Employment Situation report for January due Wednesday, Feb. 11, and the January CPI report on Friday, Feb. 13 — data that can quickly shift rate expectations and, by extension, valuations for rate-sensitive tech names. 5
