What Sent Alphabet Stock Lower?

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Shares of Alphabet (GOOGL) fell 12.6% on Thursday, October 29, 2026, compared with a 0.3% slip for the S&P 500. The selloff came the session after Alphabet reported its third-quarter results on October 28. On the surface, those numbers looked strong, with revenue growing 25% from a year earlier. So why did a quarter with that much growth send the shares this far down?

Alphabet’s Quarter Fell Short Of Estimates On Both Lines

Alphabet posted earnings per share of $2.12, missing the $3.02 analysts had expected. Revenue reached $127.6 billion, falling just under the $128.0 billion estimate. News reports linked the stock decline to that revenue shortfall, noting it fed doubts about the payoff from spending on AI infrastructure. Reports also pointed to slower growth in Search, where ad revenue rose 12% to $63.3 billion; management called currency moves the biggest reason for the slowdown. Management said net income and earnings per share decreased because other income and expenses came to a loss of $8.2 billion, mainly an unrealized loss on its investment in SpaceX.

Alphabet also spent more cash during the quarter than its operations brought in. Free cash flow was negative $9.1 billion. Management pointed mainly to capital spending of $51.4 billion, most of it on technical infrastructure for AI. The company kept its 2026 capital spending guidance of $195 billion to $205 billion, and management said it expects that spending to increase significantly in 2027. This spending comes alongside fast growth in Google Cloud, where revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion. Management said AI infrastructure was a major driver.

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Did Alphabet Stock Fall On Its Own?

Largely, yes. During the same session, the SPDR fund for its sector, communication services, fell 1.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.4%. News reports said Alphabet’s slide weighed on U.S. stocks that day. Among its peers on the Trefis list, Amazon fell 4.2% and Meta Platforms rose 2.0%. Alphabet’s decline was several times the fall in its sector fund, and the move was the company’s own. Alphabet makes up about 12% of that fund, so its own drop accounts for most of the fund’s 1.9% fall.

Alphabet Stock Now Sits Near Its 52-Week Low

A drop of this scale is rare for Alphabet, which recorded none this large in the prior 365 days. The shares closed at $283.82, resting not far above the 52-week closing low of $273.50 reached on March 30, 2026. The stock’s closing high during that timeframe was $402.62, set on May 13.

Over the past year, the stock still returned 6.4%, compared with 13.3% for the S&P 500. This return is measured from the October 28, 2025 close, just before the 52-week range begins. All of that gain materialized by April 30: since then, Alphabet has lost 26.2%, while the S&P 500 gained 7.7%.

Management said its spending on technical infrastructure will put pressure on free cash flow. Free cash flow is the measure to watch when Alphabet reports its fourth-quarter results, expected in February 2027.

Does This Mean You Should Act On GOOGL?

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