Alphabet shares are up 56% in 2023, but the stock still looks promising, according to Karen Firestone, CEO of Aureus Asset Management. “We still think it’s very attractive,” she said on CNBC’s ” Halftime Report .” Firestone noted that it’s her largest position. “I think the amount of intelligence they have put into the search engine is phenomenal and that’s just going to continue building,” she added. Firestone wasn’t alone. Fellow “Halftime Report” traders Josh Brown, Sarat Sethi and Jim Lebenthal agreed that the stock still has strong prospects, even at this valuation. Alphabet hit a 52-week high during Tuesday’s trading session. “This is the one tech stock that I’m overweight … It’s attractively priced for a rapidly growing company,” said Lebenthal, chief equity strategist at Cerity Partners. GOOGL YTD mountain Alphabet YTD chart Sethi of Douglas C. Lane & Associates pointed out that potential obstacles like rising competition, possible government intervention and revenue exposure to cyclical tailwinds all seem to have already been priced into the stock. Instead of viewing rising artificial intelligence as a threat to the way consumers use search engines, Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Brown thinks that these use cases could provide another opportunity for Google. Despite seemingly taking the backseat to Microsoft’s megadeal with OpenAI earlier this year, many opportunities still exist for Alphabet within the AI landscape, the investors pointed out. “Between now and the end of the year, to me Alphabet seems to be the only one amongst the Magnificent 7 that doesn’t seem to have any potential hiccups in front of them, there aren’t any substantial negatives there, and in the absence of that people are going to gravitate towards these stocks,” Brown said. The investors also noted that Alphabet’s balance sheet is currently flush with cash, yet another catalyst in an environment of higher rates making borrowing costs more expensive than usual for corporations.
