저자: 빌애크먼 · 외국인
요약 보기
빌 애크먼의 알파벳(구글) 강세 논리를 소개하고, 진행자 본인은 대체로 동의하나 장기 AI 영향에는 더 신중하다는 입장. 애크먼은 알파벳 주가가 연초 대비 약 40% 올랐지만 이익 성장과 멀티플 확장 여지가 있어 상승 여력이 크다고 봄. 포지션은 약 13억 달러 규모. 검색 시장점유율은 약 85%로 안정적이며 Bing·MS의 위협이 제한적이라는 근거. 유튜브는 스트리밍 경쟁에서 점유율을 높이고 광고 지출을 끌어들이는 핵심 자산으로 평가. 클라우드는 아마존·MS·구글 과점 구조에서 구글과 MS가 점유율을 늘리고 있으며, 생성형 AI 유니콘 70% 이상이 구글 클라우드 고객이라는 점을 강조. 15개 제품이 5억 명 이상, 6개 제품이 20억 명 이상 일일 사용자를 보유한 유통 우위가 핵심. 신규 제품이 나와도 구글이 빠르게 복제·배포 가능하다는 논리. AI가 광고 전환율과 광고주 투자수익률을 높일 것으로 기대하며, AI 최적화 인프라를 경쟁우위로 봄. 순현금 약 6%, 연간 자사주 매입 4%, 탄탄한 잉여현금흐름도 긍정 요인. 진행자의 리스크 판단: 경기침체가 아직 구글 실적에 반영되지 않았고 매출 감소 시 주가 압박 가능. 애크먼은 미국 30년물 국채 공매도로 장기금리 상승 헤지를 병행. 진행자는 향후 5년간 이익 성장과 멀티플 확장으로 100~150% 상승 여력 가능성을 언급했으나, AI가 5~10년 뒤 사업에 미칠 영향에는 더 조심스러운 입장. 진행자 본인은 알파벳을 소량 보유 중이며 다른 종목에 더 큰 성장성을 보고 있다고 밝힘. 면책: 투자 조언 아님.
다듬은 글
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has bought Alphabet shares massively this year, bringing his position to over $1.3 billion. This is Pershing Square, his investment vehicle that has significantly outperformed the S& P 500 over its various life cycles. Despite Bill Ackman's occasional failures, I like following him because he runs a concentrated portfolio and sometimes the positions he recommends are very interesting.
So, in this video, I'll walk you through his bullish thesis on Alphabet stock, as well as my own thoughts towards the end of the video. If you enjoy our educational investing videos, be sure to click the thumbs- up button and subscribe. You are watching Unrivaled Investing. Let's dive into what's happening with Alphabet stock, specifically Bill Ackman's bullish case for Alphabet.
Interestingly, in his letter released last week, he emphasized that, although the stock has risen by about 40% since the beginning of the year, he still sees it as an opportunity due to future earnings growth and the potential for multiple expansion over time. So, he still sees significant upside potential.
Why? What are the main bullish arguments? Well, partly because their search market share has shown no sign of slowing down, despite concerns that Bing might chip away at them and that Microsoft might attack their core search market . Since the beginning of the year and looking back over the past few years, Google has maintained a very stable market position, around 85% of the entire search market.
Then you look at online research and go to their YouTube business. YouTube continues to gain market share in the streaming battle and is also an attractive source of advertising spend. You know, looking at both search and YouTube as key properties that will continue to gain market share of digital ad spend over time.
He also likes to look at the cloud market, which is effectively an oligopoly split between Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, with Google and Microsoft continuing to gain market share. Amazon has remained fairly stable, and he sees this as a source of potential margin expansion over time as Google continues to grow.
Furthermore, and this is a key point that I think many investors should reflect on , Google has a distribution advantage. He highlights how they have 15 products that serve more than half a billion users and six products that serve over two billion daily users. This is very relevant because, even if someone were to launch a new and revolutionary product, since Google already has users who are accustomed to using their products, whether it's Gmail, Google Photos, search, or YouTube, people who use them daily, they are less likely to be displaced because they already have this distribution.
So, they might see someone, oh my goodness, someone is rapidly gaining market share or someone has this revolutionary product. They can quickly clone it, launch it, and distribute it to their audience of billions of users. And so, it's much more difficult to be put in crisis when you already have that relationship with the end customers.
Compared to someone else coming out with a revolutionary product, they'll not only have to come up with a better product than Google's, but they'll also have to reach out to all the users and let them know, "Hey, by the way, we have something better." And that is inherently difficult to do. Microsoft is obviously trying to do this with Bing and search, but so far with little change.
Another key aspect of Bill Ackman's bullish thesis is that he values their position in AI, artificial intelligence. He believes AI integration will improve ad conversion and increase advertisers' return on investment and monetization . So this doesn't just apply to search, but to YouTube as well. He also appreciates Google's AI-optimized infrastructure in their cloud segment and sees it as a key competitive advantage , given that over 70% of generative AI unicorn startups are now Google Cloud customers.
So he really sees Google as a bet on AI. I agree with him, but I also view the AI environment as inherently uncertain. He also loves Google's balance sheet and cash flow . Me too. He talks about their extremely strong balance sheet, how they have net cash of about 6% of their current market cap, and how they buy back 4% of their shares each year.
So, Google is in a very solid position with plenty of free cash flow . But the question is: okay, so what happens to Google from here on out? What are my additional considerations? First of all , for transparency, this is not financial advice. I own a small portion of Alphabet stock. Some stocks have dropped significantly recently, creating what I believe are potentially interesting opportunities.
So, if you're looking to take control of your investing an exclusive Discord community available to annual subscribers, come check it out. This i if you want to learn how to read financial statements or value stocks, also at unrivaledinvesting.com. So, I've been watching Alphabet, and I think I agree with a lot of what Bill Ackman says.
For example, with YouTube, I think they're in a fantastic position because I think generative AI...you know, a lot of the images I use in this video are created by AI, and I honestly think they're really beautiful. You know, it took me, you know, a couple of seconds to create this and it's awesome. You know, a computer working on creating a video, and it will only get better and cheaper.
And so I see the creative industry as a sector that is likely to be disrupted. I see traditional content producers facing greater risks. And so a platform like YouTube is in a great position. And keep in mind that this is just one of Google's assets . You know, the search market, if it were to be disrupted and YouTube won , it could be a problem for Google.
So, just focusing on YouTube right now, I think it 's in a very promising position as the cost of creating content continues to drop and people continue to be amazed by what they can find. I mean, just like 20 years ago, people were n't tuning into YouTube to learn about companies. You know, if you tuned in when I was a kid, there was "Wall Street Week" with Louis Rukeyser, and this is Louis Rukeyser.
Terrible imitation. But the point is, the level of analysis you can get now on YouTube is significantly better, in my opinion, than what you got on "Wall Street Week" thirty or forty years ago. And so I think this trend will continue, regardless of what topic you're interested in. So this is a great position for Alphabet, for Google, this cornerstone asset.
But I think another key aspect, and this is something some might overlook, is that the potential impact of the recession, due to the higher interest rates we've seen over the last year (a huge increase in rates, now we're up around 5% on cash ), hasn't really hit the economy yet. And so, if we were to see a recession, a lot of people would expect it.
I myself expected it. It looks like it might be postponed for a few months. If that were to happen, I don't think it's shown up in Google results yet, in which case you could have, you know, some pressure on Google stock if you started to see, you know, a decline in revenue. So, despite and because of this point, despite, you know, the bullish thesis, Bill Ackman himself is aware of the potential impact of higher interest rates on stocks.
You know, he recently pointed out , ah yeah, I have these concentrated bets on companies that I like like Alphabet. And he, you know, Alphabet has been the position he's bought aggressively, but he's also significantly shorted in 30-year U.S. Treasuries, and it's a hedge against the impact of long-term rates on stocks.
In other words, stocks could take a hit, you know, if interest rates continue to rise. And partly because, you know, the United States is in a difficult position with, you know, deficits as far as the eye can see and politicians who don't know how to, you know, seriously treat budget deficits and, you know , interest rates that are still arguably quite low.
I mean, it's interesting to see, you know, short-term liquidity yielding more than, you know, what you might get over 20 or 30 years. So, something will have to balance out over time. And so, it makes sense for Bill Ackman to say, “Hey, I expect higher rates in the future.” I discussed this in more detail in my most recent weekly letter to my Unrivaled Investing subscribers.
So, this is a really important point: even if he were right, he could still win with a hedge. So, maybe Google stock, you know, retraces, but he wins by hedging on higher interest rates. I also think it's worth understanding that the AI environment will be transformative . I mean, recently, you know, one of the former co-founders of DeepMind, which I believe was acquired by Google, you know, he created his own AI initiatives.
And, you know, one example of an AI initiative is, I think it's called Inflection, where they have the PI AI, which is designed to be a caring, intelligent, always-there AI for you, very similar to the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix, which I really liked. And so, looking at all of this, I think we are in a world in transformation; If you haven't seen the movie "Her" with Joaquin Phoenix yet, I recommend it, because it offers a glimpse into what I think our direction is.
Um, there was another similar movie where, you know, a guy created a digital actress, and it was with, uh, I forget the name. It was the guy from "The Godfather." Um, Al Pacino, and that was another example, I think, of where society is going, where we're going to have AI-generated content that's going to be mind-blowing, and the cost of creating it is going to get cheaper and cheaper.
And I think the reason this is relevant to Pi in particular is if people's relationship with their devices, with the internet, changed from "I'm going to Google it" to "I 'm going to talk to this personalized assistant about it." Could this unhinge Google over time? And so far the signs are that it's too soon.
Google is doing great. But the combination of, hey, we could have a recession and, b, you know, we could see some really weird and transformative things happen in the quarters and years ahead? I really think we're going to see something amazing, where more and more people start having interactions with AI and things like that .
I think we'll see that kind of development, talking about, you know, having a very intimate personal assistant. So, I think we'll see that, and how that will affect Google is unclear. Google is clearly, you know, a contender, given that they're launching Gemini, which is expected to be transformative later this year, but there's just a lot of elements at play.
I look at Google analyzing a hypothetical scoreboard. Keep in mind that stock prices can go up or down. I agree with a lot of what he's , you know, talking about, which is that even after a 40% rally, there's still, you know, a very reasonable return. I own Google to a very limited extent; There are other things that I think have more potential, more interesting growth potential, that I own and have recently purchased .
But I still look at all of this and I think, you know, you're probably going to get an attractive cash yield and there's a good chance he's right that you're going to get earnings growth and multiple expansion, you know, and maybe you could get, you know, 100-150% upside over the next 5 years just based on that.
So, I look at Alphabet and I largely agree with what Bill Ackman says, but I also look at its moves and I see that it's hedging itself with, you know, a big bet against Treasuries, saying, "Hey, interest rates have gone up. That could cause all stocks to go down." So I largely agree with much of what he says here, which is that Alphabet is very interesting.
It really has a lot of AI features that make it worthwhile. It undoubtedly has a distribution advantage. Personally, I'm a little more cautious about how AI will impact their business in the long term, 5 or 10 years from now. A little more cautious on this point. But you know, I welcome your opinions in the comments below.
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