New York, February 17, 2026, 05:36 (EST) — Premarket
- Alphabet (GOOGL) down about 0.6% before the bell after a four-day market break
- Big tech valuations under pressure as investors question returns on AI buildouts
- Traders watch Fed minutes this week and Alphabet CFO remarks due March 3
Alphabet’s Class A shares were down 0.6% at $303.82 in premarket trading on Tuesday, after closing at $305.72 on Friday. (Yahoo Finance)
The move lands as investors return to a market still arguing about the price tag of artificial intelligence. Alphabet’s market value is down about $87.96 billion since the start of 2026, leaving it around $3.7 trillion as of Friday, while Microsoft and Amazon have lost roughly $613 billion and $343 billion, respectively. (Reuters)
Risk appetite looked unsteady into the open. S&P 500 e-minis were down about 0.5% early Tuesday as traders watched U.S.-Iran nuclear talks and waited for Federal Reserve minutes and other data later this week. (Reuters)
U.S. stock markets were closed on Monday for Presidents Day, setting up Tuesday for catch-up flows and a fresh look at how much pain the market will take from Big Tech spending plans. (Nasdaq)
Alphabet has not put out a new headline in the past couple of days, but the stock has stayed tethered to one issue: how quickly the company can turn costly AI infrastructure into cash earnings, not just usage.
In an SEC filing tied to its latest results, Alphabet said 2026 capital expenditures — money spent on items such as data centers, servers and networking gear — are expected at $175 billion to $185 billion, nearly double 2025’s $91.45 billion. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said AI investment and infrastructure were helping “drive revenue and growth across the board,” and the filing showed the board declared a $0.21 quarterly cash dividend payable March 16 to holders of record on March 9. (SEC)
Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, called the company’s cloud growth “importantly higher” than Microsoft Azure’s for the first time in several years, giving Alphabet more room to defend the jump in spending. (Reuters)
For traders, the near-term question is whether Alphabet can keep ad growth solid while it pours more money into compute. Google Cloud will stay in focus too, with investors measuring it against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in both growth and profitability.
But the risk runs the other way. If ad demand softens or the AI buildout pushes free cash flow lower than expected, the stock could struggle to recover, especially with regulators still circling Google’s core search and advertising businesses.
The next company checkpoint is March 3, when CFO Anat Ashkenazi is scheduled to speak at Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference — an event investors will use to press for more detail on capex pacing and the path back to margins. (Abc)
