Alphabet Stock Jumps Over 3% After Warren Buffett Confirms He Personally Built Berkshire's GOOG Stake

Shares of Alphabet climbed 3.64% on Wednesday, trading at $370.34 as of 11:35 a.m. EDT, up $13.01 on the day, after Warren Buffett confirmed in a live CNBC interview that he personally initiated Berkshire Hathaway's large and growing investment in the Google parent company, putting to rest speculation that the position had been driven by his successor.

Buffett addressed the question directly during the interview, dispelling any notion that incoming Berkshire Chief Executive Greg Abel had been behind the investment decision.

"I initiated it," Buffett said, while also noting that both he and Abel now approve all of the conglomerate's major investment decisions jointly.

A Growing Position Since Late 2025

Berkshire Hathaway first disclosed its stake in Alphabet during the third quarter of 2025, and the position has grown substantially since that initial disclosure. That growth has included Berkshire's participation in a $10 billion private placement earlier this year specifically earmarked to support Alphabet's ongoing artificial intelligence infrastructure expansion, bringing Berkshire's total exposure to Alphabet to roughly $31 billion.

Analyst Price Target Raise Adds to Momentum

Buffett's comments arrived alongside additional positive catalysts for the stock. KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson raised his price target on Alphabet's Class A shares to $445 from $425 ahead of the company's second-quarter 2026 earnings report, scheduled for July 22. Patterson argued that Wall Street has been underestimating the staying power of both Google Search and Google Cloud amid broader concerns about competition in the AI space.

Cloud Backlog Fuels Pre-Earnings Optimism

Ahead of next week's earnings report, investor sentiment toward Alphabet has continued building on the strength of the company's cloud computing business. Alphabet's Google Cloud backlog reached $462 billion, nearly doubling on a sequential basis during the first quarter of 2026, a figure that has kept broader sentiment around the stock constructive as investors position ahead of what is expected to be a busy earnings season across the technology sector.

That cloud momentum builds on strong first-quarter results reported earlier this year, when Alphabet's overall revenue grew 22% to $109.9 billion, while Google Cloud revenue specifically grew 63% to $20.0 billion. The company's operating margin expanded to 36.1% during that period, and earnings per share grew 82% to $5.11, according to figures cited in recent market commentary tracking the stock.

Stock Outpaces the Broader Market

Wednesday's gain for Alphabet significantly outpaced the broader market, even as major indexes posted solid gains of their own. The S&P 500 rose roughly 0.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed approximately 0.7% during the session, providing a generally supportive backdrop for equities. Alphabet's outsized move relative to those benchmarks reflects the company-specific nature of Wednesday's catalyst, according to market commentary tracking the session.

The combination of Buffett's public endorsement, the fresh analyst price target increase, and growing pre-earnings optimism around Google Cloud's artificial intelligence monetization trajectory pushed Alphabet shares to a session high of $366.08 at one point Wednesday, according to earlier tracking of the stock's movement, well above the prior session's closing price of $359.51.

A Dramatic Shift From the Stock's 52-Week Low

Wednesday's trading levels stand in sharp contrast to Alphabet's 52-week low of $180.48, underscoring just how significantly investor sentiment toward the stock has shifted over the past year. The stock reached an all-time high of $404.44 earlier this year, reflecting a broader rally across mega-cap technology names tied to continued enthusiasm around artificial intelligence infrastructure investment.

Recent Headwinds Had Weighed on Shares

Despite Wednesday's strong showing, Alphabet's stock has not been without recent volatility. Shares had slid more than 5% over the prior week after two senior artificial intelligence researchers, John Jumper and Noam Shazeer, departed the company to join rival AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI, respectively, a development that had raised questions among some investors about Alphabet's ability to retain top AI talent amid intensifying competition for researchers across the industry.

Upcoming Earnings Report in Focus

With Alphabet's second-quarter earnings report scheduled for July 22, analysts are closely watching the company's capital expenditure trajectory as a key indicator of its ongoing AI infrastructure buildout. Analysts currently expect Alphabet's second-quarter capital expenditures to reach $44.9 billion, representing a 100% increase from the same period a year earlier, reflecting the scale of investment major technology companies continue directing toward AI-related data center and computing infrastructure.

Wall Street Remains Broadly Bullish

Alphabet continues to carry a "Strong Buy" consensus rating among analysts tracking the stock, according to recent data, with an average 12-month price target implying meaningful additional upside from current trading levels. The stock has risen approximately 15% year-to-date heading into Wednesday's session, even accounting for recent volatility tied to AI talent departures and broader questions about elevated infrastructure spending across the technology sector.

With Buffett's endorsement now publicly confirmed and Alphabet's earnings report just over a week away, investors are likely to remain closely focused on the company's cloud growth trajectory, capital expenditure plans, and overall AI monetization strategy as key factors shaping sentiment toward the stock in the near term. Should Alphabet's upcoming results confirm the kind of sustained cloud momentum reflected in its expanding backlog, market watchers suggest the stock could continue building on Wednesday's gains as one of the more prominent beneficiaries of the broader AI infrastructure investment cycle currently underway across the technology sector.