New York, Jan 31, 2026, 09:36 (EST) — Market closed.
- Alphabet Class C closed at $338.64 on Friday; last traded at $338.53 after hours.
- Investors are bracing for next week’s results, with AI-related capital spending in the spotlight.
- Google rolled out “Project Genie” as a judge rejected a bid for over $2 billion in new privacy penalties.
Alphabet’s Class C shares (GOOG) closed at $338.64 on Friday and were last down about 0.03% at $338.53 in after-hours trading, after ranging between $330.88 and $340.25. The Nasdaq fell 0.94% in the session. (Reuters)
The stock heads into a dense stretch of catalysts, with results due from a large slice of the S&P 500 and a key U.S. jobs report scheduled for Feb. 6. Investors are also rechecking valuations in big tech after mixed reactions to recent megacap earnings and comments on big data-center buildouts. (Reuters)
Bank of America Securities analyst Justin Post raised his capital spending forecast for 2026 to about $139 billion, versus Street expectations near $119 billion, as companies pour money into AI, or artificial intelligence, infrastructure. “First-quarter commentary will likely matter most for the stock,” he wrote, while lifting his revenue and profit forecasts for the quarter. (Finviz)
Google this week rolled out “Project Genie,” an AI model that can turn text or image prompts into playable, interactive worlds, shaking videogame-related shares. Take-Two Interactive fell 10%, Roblox dropped more than 12% and Unity Software slid 21% after the unveiling, Reuters reported. “We’ll see a real transformation” once AI-driven design creates experiences “uniquely its own,” said Joost van Dreunen, a games professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. (Reuters)
Google said in a blog post that “Project Genie” is an experimental prototype for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the United States, letting users create and explore worlds in real time. It is powered by “Genie 3,” which the company described as a “world model” that predicts how an environment changes as a user moves and interacts; the prototype currently limits generations to 60 seconds, the post said. (Blog)
On the legal front, Google persuaded Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco to reject consumers’ bid for more than $2 billion in additional penalties in a privacy class action tied to data collection when users switched off a key privacy setting. Seeborg declined to order $2.36 billion in disgorgement — a court-ordered handback of alleged profits — and also rejected a request to bar certain data practices; Google said it will appeal a separate jury damages award of $425 million from September. (Reuters)
A separate filing showed Alphabet director Frances H. Arnold sold 102 Class C shares on Jan. 29 at $340 apiece, a transaction made under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on Aug. 21, 2025. (SEC)
For traders, the next big test is the company’s tone on advertising and cloud demand, and the size of the spending bill behind its AI push. Capital spending — money put into servers, chips and data centers — has become a quick read on both growth ambition and margin risk.
But the same spending that supports AI products can cut the other way if management signals a sharper ramp than investors expect, or if ad demand softens after a strong holiday period. Legal and regulatory fights can also flare up at awkward moments, even when immediate cash impact looks limited.
Trading resumes on Monday, and Alphabet reports fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on Feb. 4, with a conference call scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET. (Abc)
