What Happened?

Shares of online advertising giant Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) fell 3.1% in the afternoon session after reports surfaced about a lack of financing for a major Michigan data center, which dragged down several large-cap AI-related stocks. 

The news specifically impacted Oracle, Nvidia, Broadcom, and Alphabet, as reports indicated a major partner refused to back a plan to build a $10 billion data center. This development triggered a sell-off among these tech giants, weighing on the broader indexes even as many smaller companies saw gains. The move occurred amid wider concerns about the technology sector, with some economists highlighting a slowdown in hiring within the industry. On the day of the decline, the communication services and technology sectors were the market's worst performers.

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What Is The Market Telling Us

Alphabet’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 5 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 6 days ago when the stock dropped 2.6% on the news that reports surfaced that its Google unit was expected to be fined by EU antitrust regulators for favoring its own services, contributing to a broader tech sector downturn. 

The potential penalty stemmed from charges that Google did not do enough to comply with the Digital Markets Act, which can lead to fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual turnover. 

Adding to the regulatory headwinds, the European Commission also launched a separate investigation into whether Google improperly used other publishers' content for its AI purposes. The negative news was compounded by a wider market retreat from technology stocks. The sell-off was triggered after Oracle, seen as a key indicator for AI investment, reported cloud sales that missed estimates, sparking concerns across the industry about the high cost and uncertain returns of AI infrastructure spending. This sentiment pulled down most major tech stocks.

Alphabet is up 57% since the beginning of the year, and at $297.36 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $323.44 from November 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Alphabet’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $3,417.

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