We recently compiled a list of the 12 Best Fortune 500 Stocks To Buy According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stands against the other Fortune 500 stocks.
The Fortune 500 list includes companies that generate the highest revenue in the United States. In total, Fortune 500 companies represent two-thirds of the US GDP with $18.8 trillion in revenues, $1.7 trillion in profits, and $43 trillion in market value (as of March 28, 2024), and they employ approximately 31 million people worldwide. Large-cap stocks, which form most of the Fortune 500, are typically safer investments and offer relative stability in times of economic difficulty.
READ ALSO: 11 Best Performing Dow Stocks so Far in 2025
After registering significant gains over the last two years, the broader US market fell sharply on Friday in the wake of weaker-than-expected economic reports and softening consumer demand. A recent report by S&P Global showed that business activity in the US is slowing down, with growth decelerating to a 17-month low. The slowdown is primarily a reflection of rising uncertainty about the business environment, especially in relation to federal government policies regarding domestic spending cuts and the constant threat of looming tariffs.
There are also serious concerns of high inflation due to the said tariffs, causing consumers to be more wary of their spending habits. According to the Tax Foundation, if the tariffs threatened by President Trump are actually imposed, it would amount to an average tax increase of more than $800 per US household in 2025. The tariffs on China alone will add $172 to the tax burden per household, while the rumored imposts on Canadian oil will drive up the price of gas, affecting the entire economy.
That said, some policy measures promised by the Trump administration can also bode well for US corporations and the overall business environment, including taking a less heavy-handed approach towards mergers than under President Biden’s administration. Moreover, the cornerstone of Trump’s second term will be to relax tax policies and extend or make permanent many of the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that expire at the end of 2025. The President has campaigned on further reducing the base corporate rate to 20%, with an additional cut to 15% for companies that produce goods on American soil.
Another important thing to be mindful of was recently highlighted by Bank of America in a note earlier this month, warning investors of the high concentration levels in the market, where a handful of firms command the lion’s share of investments. This is partially because of passive investing, where investors shovel money into indexes indiscriminately. Passive funds now hold a higher percentage of the US stock market than active funds, which can distort market prices and severely mislead investors. To avoid a potential drawdown, the bank has advised its investors to diversify and consider investing in baskets of quality stocks with lower exposure to the Magnificent Seven stocks.
Methodology
To collect data for this article, we referred to the top 50 companies among the Fortune Global Rankings as of January 20, 2024. We then picked out 12 companies with the highest number of hedge fund investors according to the Insider Monkey database as of Q4 2024. Following are the Best Fortune 500 Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A laptop and phone open to Google’s services in an everyday setting.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 174
One of the largest technology conglomerates in the world, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the parent company of Google. Key acquisitions include YouTube, Fitbit, and Nest, expanding Alphabet’s reach across multiple industries.
Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) have fallen by over 12% since February 4th, when it released its Q4 2024 earnings, as the tech giant missed on revenue expectations and investors came away disappointed with its cloud computing revenue growth rate. Though Alphabet’s total revenue for Q4 2024 surged by 12% YoY to $96.47 billion, it missed market expectations. Moreover, the company’s revenue growth, as well as the uptick in its search business, its YouTube ads business, and its services segment were all slower compared to the same period in 2023. The company’s Cloud business grew 30% YoY to $11.96 billion but was below market expectations and witnessed a slower growth rate than in Q3. However, Alphabet remains financially healthy and generated $24.8 billion in free cash flow in Q4 and $72.8 billion for the full year 2024. It ended the year with $95.7 billion in cash and equivalents and $10.9 billion in debt.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) continues to focus on expanding its AI strategy as it faces stiff competition from players around the world. The company announced earlier this month that it will spend $75 billion on its AI buildout in 2025, 29% more than market expectations. The massive figure primarily reflects the company’s investment in its technical infrastructure, with the largest component being investments in servers, followed by data centers ‘to support the growth of our business across Google Services, Google Cloud and Google DeepMind’.
Merion Road Capital Management stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG): We have held GOOG for a long time (since 2018) on the basis of its immense business quality paired with an undemanding valuation, improving treatment of minority shareholders, and multiple options for value creation. Recently we have seen Alphabet bashed for losing the AI race to now heralded for its progress. I remain excited about their prospects with several near-term, mid-term, and long-term tailwinds. Near-term, Google Cloud continues its rapid growth and their latest large language model, Gemini 2.0, appears to have made significant progress to better serve consumer needs and improve GOOG’s other product offerings. Mid-term, Waymo is on the cusp of becoming a real value driver for the company; there are abundant articles discussing Waymo stealing share from the ride-share economy and launching in new geographies. Long-term, GOOG’s recently announced quantum computing chip positions it well for a future (many, many years away) where computing process are fundamentally different than today. All of these options are embedded in a company that already has an established and dominant earnings stream.”
Overall GOOG ranks 3rd on our list of the best Fortune 500 stocks to buy according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential for GOOG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than GOOG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.