New York, Feb 11, 2026, 11:37 a.m. ET — Regular session
- Alphabet Class C shares slipped roughly 2% during the session, following weakness across the megacap tech space.
- Google’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz has been cleared by EU regulators, even as publishers ramp up an antitrust complaint targeting AI Overviews.
- Friday’s U.S. CPI report is the next key signal investors are watching for clues on rates and valuations.
Alphabet Inc’s Class C shares (GOOG.O) slipped 2.1% to $312.08 late Wednesday morning. The stock lost ground after initial gains, with traders cautious about big-tech outlays and ongoing regulatory threats.
The stock finds itself at the center of an intensifying debate over the debt demands tied to the AI expansion. Alphabet just floated $20 billion in high-grade notes this week. Barclays analysts are eyeing U.S. corporate bond issuance hitting $2.46 trillion by 2026, with firms ramping up investment in data centers and chips.
Tension was clear in Tuesday’s market action. Alphabet slipped 1.8% after a $20 billion bond sale, while investors pulled back, unwilling to overstep risk limits ahead of the postponed U.S. payrolls data. “Nobody” is ready to stretch past their “risk budget,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. Reuters
Alphabet didn’t mince words with its latest financing move. According to a memo from a lead manager, the Google parent tapped markets for a rare 100-year sterling bond—debt that won’t mature until a century from now—bundling it into a massive $31.51 billion global bond sale. “That’s representative … of a lot of the capital spending,” said Jason Granet, chief investment officer at BNY. Reuters
That same day, the EU gave Google’s $32 billion buyout of cybersecurity firm Wiz a straightforward green light. Regulators said the takeover posed no threat to competition in cloud services and waved it through without conditions. “Customers will continue to have credible alternatives,” noted EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera. Reuters
But there’s movement in the other direction on a separate EU front. The European Publishers Council has filed an antitrust complaint targeting Google’s “AI Overviews”—those AI-driven summaries in search results—saying the tech giant is using publishers’ material without permission or pay. “It is about stopping a dominant gatekeeper,” EPC chairman Christian Van Thillo said. Google, for its part, dismissed the complaint as “inaccurate” and pointed to tools it says let publishers control their content. Reuters
Macro forces worked against the market. U.S. payrolls climbed by 130,000 in January—well above the consensus for 70,000—while the unemployment rate dropped to 4.3%, according to the latest data. Treasury yields responded, moving higher, and traders pulled back on rate-cut expectations. “The only jobs being filled … do not guarantee the economy’s future success,” FWDBONDS chief economist Christopher Rupkey commented. Reuters
Alphabet wasn’t the only AI-heavyweight taking a hit. Microsoft slipped 2.2%, while Amazon shed about 1.0% as of late morning.
Alphabet’s Class C shares—these are the non-voting ones—usually serve as a straightforward gauge of daily sentiment toward the Google parent. Today, traders aren’t fixated on immediate demand. Instead, they’re weighing how spending, debt loads and regulatory issues stack up.
Still, there’s no straight line here. Green light for Wiz strips out an obstacle from Google Cloud’s security ambitions. On the other hand, the publishers’ challenge may crank up the heat on Search’s economics, right as investment ticks up and investors get even more alert to cash flow and funding expenses.
Investors are bracing for the January consumer price index, set for release by the Labor Department this Friday, Feb. 13, at 8:30 a.m. ET. That inflation report has the potential to shake up rate projections and recalculate valuations for long-duration tech names like Alphabet.
