This article first appeared on our U.S. website.

Despite a strong day in the broader U.S. market, shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) traded roughly 2.8% lower as of 12:59 p.m. ET today, though they rebounded a bit in the afternoon. As of 3:30 p.m. ET, Alphabet stock was down 1.8% for the day.

The move came after ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, teased the launch of its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web browser, ChatGPT Atlas.

A threat to search dominance

Earlier today on X, OpenAI posted a very short video teasing its new web browser, and CNBC reported that it will soon be available to the general public.

Investors have been increasingly concerned about the launch of AI-powered browsers and search engines when it comes to Alphabet, which has long dominated the search business. In fact, over half of Alphabet’s revenue comes from search, so if these AI-powered browsers can take share of the market, Google and Alphabet could certainly be in trouble.

Google has responded with the creation of its AI-powered Overviews on top of search queries that are powered by Gemini. The company has also rolled out AI Mode, which seems similar to ChatGPT in that users can ask follow-up questions like with a conversational AI chatbot. For the most part, analysts have been impressed with the engagement between users and Google’s AI-powered overviews.

The company owns many strong businesses

AI-powered browsers are certainly a threat to Google’s search business, but this is a company with near-infinite resources that should be able to respond, as evidenced by the success of AI Overviews.

Alphabet also owns many spectacular businesses with strong growth prospects including Waymo, YouTube, Google cloud, a chip business, and a quantum project. Trading at about 25 times forward earnings, the stock is still a buy in my view.

The post Why Shares of Alphabet (Google) Are Falling Today appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

This article first appeared on our U.S. website.

Shares of Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) were trading 10% higher as of 3 p.m. ET Monday, after a Wall Street analyst raised his price target on the stock and reiterated a buy rating for the quantum computing company.

Industry momentum is building

Needham analyst Quinn Bolton increased his price target on Rigetti by $3 to $18 per share, implying about 15% upside from current levels. Bolton believes there is momentum in the quantum computing sector. He is specifically watching the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmark Initiative (QBI) and a pending bill in Congress called the Department of Energy Quantum Leadership Act.

An independent research and development (R&D) agency stashed within the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA was created in response to the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and works to ensure the country is always prepared to “face a strategic technical surprise.” QBI’s goal is to determine the plausibility of building a quantum computer with a “computational value” that surpasses its cost by the year 2033. The initiative is currently in stage A.

Meanwhile, the Department of Energy Quantum Leadership Act is a bipartisan bill that would increase R&D in the quantum information space, potentially allocating $2.5 billion over the next five years to research. The bill is currently pending in the Senate and has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Lots of excitement around this speculative space

Quantum computing stocks have generated significant buzz over the last year, given the technology’s potential to revolutionize society. Rigetti is believed to be one of the leaders in the space.

Still, quantum computers haven’t really been commercialized yet and many companies like Rigetti are losing money and generating very little in revenue, while trading at multibillion-dollar market caps. For this reason, I would keep positions smaller and more speculative.

The post Why Shares of Rigetti Computing Are Soaring Today appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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• 3 Stocks That Could Turn a $100,000 Portfolio Into $1 Million Sooner Than You Might Think

Fool contributor Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The stock market has gotten off to a very different start to the year than most investors might have imagined. The broader benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is down close to 5%, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) has entered correction territory (as of March 11). Investors seem to have overplayed their hands in believing that President Donald Trump would not follow through on campaign promises to implement sweeping tariffs against key U.S. trading partners, including China, Mexico, and Canada. That, coupled with weaker economic data, has stoked concerns about a recession or maybe even stagflation.

While the situation is fluid, many stocks have been hit hard, presenting a potential buying opportunity. You won’t believe the stock that recently hit a 52-year low.

More questions than answers when it comes to AI

The artificial intelligence trade has fueled the recent bull market run. Investors poured into stocks tied to AI, which many believe will revolutionize life as we know it. The “Magnificent Seven” stocks, a group of tech stocks heavily believed to be huge beneficiaries of AI, emerged from this trade.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is part of the Magnificent Seven and is one of the most important technology companies in the world, with many of its products powering the business world. However, the company has failed to excite investors like its peers. The stock has struggled over the past year and is now at a 52-week low and well below its 52-week average.

MSFT data by YCharts.

Investors have been concerned about Microsoft’s future with AI, and they’re trying to assess what the return on the company’s heavy investments will be and when they will materialize. This is an issue many companies investing in AI are dealing with. Microsoft has vowed to spend $80 billion on AI this year, but is doing so while the company has struggled in other areas.

Gross profit margins at the company declined over the past year, but are still well above 60%. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Microsoft beat Wall Street analyst estimates on earnings per share and revenue, but saw weaker growth than expected in its Azure cloud business. The company also issued weaker guidance than expected for the current quarter.

The cloud business is supposed to reap benefits from AI, so investors were disappointed by the results. On Microsoft’s most recent earnings call, management said that AI revenue surpassed $13 billion and exceeded their expectations. Management also attributed weakness in its cloud business to non-AI services, which came in below management’s expectations.

Microsoft will find a way

Despite questions about AI capital expenditures, analysts are still bullish on the company. Of the 31 analysts that have issued a research report on Microsoft over the past three months, 28 rate the company a buy and three say hold, according to TipRanks. The average price target implies 34% upside from current levels.

In the near term, the proof will be in the pudding regarding whether Microsoft can produce tangible results from all its AI spending. However, in the long term, I expect the company to benefit, given its track record of innovation and all the resources at its disposal. Microsoft has tremendous revenue diversity within technology, from its cloud business to social media to gaming to its suite of office products. I see this as a core advantage of the company that will be hard for peers to replicate.

Additionally, Microsoft is one of the few companies that has a better credit rating than the U.S. government, so investors shouldn’t have to worry about its durability. For its fiscal year 2025, analysts expect Microsoft to generate $48 billion of free cash flow. The company’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is 28.7, which is below its five-year average of about 30.5. Interested investors can take advantage and buy the dip.

The post Trump Tariffs: You Won’t Believe What Top Stock Is Below Its 52-Week Low appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Artificial intelligence stocks were moving higher today as earnings season kicked into full swing and as investors continue to digest the impact of DeepSeek on the AI sector.

Shares of AI giants Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) had moved roughly 4.5% as of 2 p.m. ET, while shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) had risen about 2.5%. Meanwhile, shares of Marvell Technologies (NASDAQ: MRVL) were up nearly 3%.

A big assist from Meta

Meta Platforms reported its fourth-quarter earnings results after the market closed yesterday, soundly beating analyst estimates. Earnings per share of $8.02 crushed the Street’s consensus estimate of $6.76, while revenue came in $1.4 billion higher than expected.

However, Meta’s results also came with a nice surprise for Broadcom. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the earnings call with analysts that the company would spend hundreds of billions on artificial intelligence. Additionally, Meta CFO Susan Li also said, “We’re pursuing cost efficiencies by deploying our custom MTIA (Meta Training and Inference Accelerator) silicon in areas where we can achieve a lower cost of compute by optimizing the chip to our unique workloads.” Meta built its MTIA chips with Broadcom, so investors see this announcement as very bullish for the company.

In potentially other good news for Broadcom, The Wall Street Journal reported late last night that SoftBank is contemplating a $15 billion to $25 billion investment in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Broadcom in December said it had recently won deals to develop next-generation semiconductor chips for two new companies and analysts think one is OpenAI, so the WSJ report looks like more good news.

Alphabet is benefiting today after two analysts raised their price targets on the company this morning. Analysts at Bernstein increased their price target on the stock from $185 to $210 and maintained a market perform rating on the stock. The analysts believe that Google Search and YouTube will continue to grow nicely, while Alphabet’s cloud services group can potentially turn the company into a winner in the AI space.

Alphabet also caught a price target bump from Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein, who increased his target by $10 to $215 and maintained an outperform rating on the shares. Helfstein said that Meta’s results pave a favorable path for when Alphabet reports earnings next week. He thinks more investors might buy the stock as the company’s AI picture becomes more clear and if investors start to question Meta’s revenue outlook.

While there was no specific news from Marvell, it appears to be moving for the same reasons as Broadcom. Meta’s announcement supports the thesis that tech giants could look to create more tailored chips to meet their AI infrastructure needs. Marvell already does this for some of the biggest tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Earnings reports keep investors interested in AI

After a big sell-off earlier this week due to the emergence of DeepSeek, earnings reports are keeping investors interested in the AI trade. I think the emergence of DeepSeek has only created more questions about whether AI companies can sustain their elevated valuations, so I am still concerned that these stocks face a high threshold to keep the momentum going.

Of these three stocks — Broadcom, Alphabet, and Marvell — I am most interested in Alphabet, one of the cheaper names in the “Magnificent Seven.” Alphabet has struggled more than peers due to a lawsuit from the Department of Justice that could ultimately force the company to sell its Chrome browser. But I think this outcome is unlikely, and I like the fact that analysts believe the market has yet to fully price in the value of Alphabet’s AI businesses.

The post Why Artificial Intelligence Stocks Broadcom, Alphabet (Google), and Marvell Technologies Are Rising Today appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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• A Year Later: The Canadian Dividend Stock That Surprised Me Most
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• Here’s the Average Canadian TFSA and RRSP Balances at Age 45
• 2 Canadian Stocks I’d Buy if I Only Checked My Portfolio Monthly
• 3 Stocks That Could Turn a $100,000 Portfolio Into $1 Million Sooner Than You Might Think

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Fool contributor Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Alphabet and Marvell Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.