Yahoo Finance Alphabet (GOOG) Exceeded Analysts’ Expectations in Q1
Lakehouse Capital, a Sydney-based investment manager, released its “Lakehouse Global Growth Fund” April 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. April was a busy month as many of the companies in the portfolio reported earnings. The Fund returned -4.3% net of fees and expenses for the month compared to -2.8% for its benchmark. Since its inception in December 2017, the Fund has returned 152.8% compared to 96.0% for its benchmark, the MSCI All Country World Index, Net Total Returns (AUD). As of the end of April, the Fund's largest sector allocations were to consumer discretionary (19.3%), information technology (22.6%), and communication services (27.0%). In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Lakehouse Global Growth Fund highlighted stocks like Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its April 2024 investor letter. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the parent company of Google, offers various platforms and services operating through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The one-month return of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was 0.83%, and its shares gained 36.36% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 3, 2024, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock closed at $174.42 per share with a market capitalization of $2.147 trillion.
Lakehouse Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its April 2024 investor letter:
"Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) delivered a strong quarterly result that came in well ahead of analysts' expectations. Revenue grew 15.4% (16.0% constant currency) to $80.5 billion and operating income grew 46.0% to $25.5 billion. Revenue growth accelerated across Search, YouTube Ads, and Google Cloud, all whilst the company delivered its highest operating margin since 2021 – showing meaningful progress in the company’s efforts to durably re-work their cost structure. On the Generative AI front, management emphasised the company’s infrastructure advantages including 5th generation TPUs(chips developed by Google specifically for AI training and inference), high performance data centre architecture, and AI models that are 100x more efficient versus 18 months ago. Overall, we believe that Alphabet is well placed for the AI opportunity ahead and still has significant latent earnings power. When combined with a relatively undemanding valuation of 21x forward net profit and over $100 billion of cash on the balance sheet, it's not hard to see why we remain positive on the range of outcomes in the years ahead."
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in 7th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 165 hedge fund portfolios held Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the first quarter which was 166 in the previous quarter. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) trailing 12-month revenue is $318.15 billion and its year over year quarterly growth rate is 15.40%. While we acknowledge the potential of GOOG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as Microsoft but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and shared Weitz Investment Large Cap Equity Fund's views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
