Wall Street has been grinding at record levels, and Google is inching toward the front of the pack. Shares closed Friday at 193.01, just 7% off the 52-week high of 207.05. The setup is visible to anyone watching price action: a textbook cup and handle began forming back in mid February. That pattern triggered cleanly, neckline cleared. But last week brought month-end options expiration, and price action got pinned under 195. Why? Because that strike had nearly 9,500 open call contracts stacked up. Market makers sat on it. Those calls expired. The cap is off.
Now comes the firepower. In April, Google’s board signed off on another $70 billion repurchase program. That’s around 5% of the company’s entire market cap, just sitting on standby. But buybacks have been frozen until now. Most major U.S. companies run a blackout window around earnings, including Google. The Q2 numbers dropped late Tuesday, July 23. Add two full trading days of post-earnings silence, and that brought us to Friday, July 26, as the first day the buyback machine could fully reload. No other material disclosures are pending. That buyback cannon is now unlocked.
Meanwhile, options are cheap. Implied volatility on weekly calls is stuck between 26% and 30%. That’s low. If Google pushes above 195 with volume, market makers will be forced to hedge rapidly, accelerating upside through gamma exposure. The options setup is tight and thin. The smallest spark could run the tape.
Pre-earnings momentum already did a lot of the work. Google rallied nearly 15% into the Q2 release, so the beat didn’t cause a massive pop. But that digestion phase is healthy. Positions unwind, implied volatility resets, and now the table is cleared for a fresh leg. If it happens, it won’t be out of nowhere. It’s structurally ready.
The doom story around Search is not aging well. Google’s Q2 Search and Other revenue hit $54.19 billion, up 12% from a year ago. Talk that AI chatbots would cannibalize search never held up in actual numbers. LLMs still stumble on basic real-world use cases like “Chinese food near me” or “Hilton Midtown parking.” They lag badly when users ask for direct contact details or try to use the bar like a shortcut: “IRS refund status” or “Wells Fargo log in.” Google wins on muscle memory, and that grip isn’t loosening.
Valuation still leaves room. Google trades at a PE of 20.6 with a PEG near 1.0. Microsoft, by contrast, commands a 39.7 PE and a PEG around 3.3. That’s nearly double the earnings multiple and over triple the growth-adjusted price tag. Yet both compete in the same verticals: cloud, AI, enterprise. The spread is hard to justify.
Macro tailwinds help too. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are punching through highs. When liquidity is flush, and indexes break out, tech leads. If Google can clear the 195 shelf with force, a move past 207 is in play this week. That would set a new all-time high. Everything is pointing in that direction, barring an external shock.
There’s a bigger story forming underneath the chart. Google’s video AI tools are maturing fast. Text-to-video generators are already creating coherent 5 to 10 minute clips with narrative flow. Once those tools are usable at scale, content creators will skip every third-party tool and upload directly to YouTube. That will open a new layer of ad inventory. It’s a structural flywheel.
Capex panic was misplaced. Some investors flinched when they saw the jump in capital expenditure. That hesitation vanished quickly. Google has a long track record of turning big spend into bigger growth. Strategic investment is not a red flag. Hesitation would be. And the market already digested the one-time hit. That fear cycle is done.
Cloud has flipped the script. For years, Google Cloud was a break-even story. Not anymore. Q2 numbers show $2.8 billion in operating income with a margin of 20.7%. That margin nearly doubled from last year. It’s now a legit profit engine that sits next to ads, not beneath them.
Google’s breakout is no longer just a technical trade. The fundamentals are there. The buyback firepower is live. Volatility is priced wrong. And the macro setup favors momentum. The next move will be fast if it clears the shelf.
Note: This is not financial advice and is for educational purposes only. Please conduct your own due diligence.
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