What Happened?
Shares of online advertising giant Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) jumped 4.4% in the morning session after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a significant stake in the company.
A regulatory filing showed that Berkshire held about 17.85 million shares as of the end of September, a position valued at nearly $4.93 billion. The news surprised many investors, as Berkshire has historically approached large technology stocks with caution. This rare move into the tech sector was seen as a strong vote of confidence in Alphabet. The investment was considered a notable moment and one of the last major decisions overseen by the legendary investor, which signaled growing confidence in the tech and AI sectors.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $288.76, up 4.7% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Alphabet’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 6 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 4 days ago when the stock dropped 2.6% on the news that the broader U.S. stock market declined amid investor caution and a pullback in technology stocks. The main story? Investors are cashing in on a good run and feeling a bit cautious. After a fantastic run, many of those high-flying AI and technology stocks saw investors take profits: selling shares to lock in their gains. This is often called a "market rotation." Money is moving out of the red-hot tech sector (which some worry has become too expensive) and into other parts of the market that investors may currently deem more stable or reasonably-priced.
There's a secondary reason for the cautious mood: The long government shutdown came to an end. Though it's typically interpreted as good news, it also means a flood of delayed economic reports will be released. For weeks, investors were "flying blind" without key updates on the economy's health, like inflation data and the jobs report. In typical "sell the news" fashion, investors may also be taking profits and selling in anticipation that the new data would potentially give the Federal Reserve reasons to slow or even pause future rate cuts.
Alphabet is up 52.4% since the beginning of the year, and at $288.76 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $291.31 from November 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Alphabet’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $3,278.
While Wall Street chases Nvidia at all-time highs, an under-the-radar semiconductor supplier is dominating a critical AI component these giants can’t build without. Click here to access our full research report.
