Alphabet Options Volume Surges Amid Fears It May be Forced to Sell Chrome
$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$'s options volume trading surged Thursday as the stock headed for its worst decline this year amid concerns the company may be forced to sell its Chrome business.
Call options that give the holders the right to buy the stock at $170 attracted the heaviest trading as investors and speculators unload them after the stock tumbled below that strike price. The share price slump boosted the odds that the contracts would expire worthless tomorrow, sending the price tumbling. More than 41,500 of those calls changed hands as of 2:10 p.m. in New York.
More than 617,900 Alphabet options traded as of 2:11 p.m. in New York, making it the seventh most active stock option, behind $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$, $Tesla (TSLA.US)$, $Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US)$, $MicroStrategy (MSTR.US)$, $Amazon (AMZN.US)$, and $MARA Holdings (MARA.US)$, exchange data tracked by moomoo showed. Google's options volume is almost twice the 20-day average, according to Bloomberg data. More than 70% of the options traded were calls.
Antitrust officials said in a court filing that Google must sell its Chrome business, a sale that could fetch as much as $20 billion, according to a Bloomberg report. The Department of Justice and a group of attorneys general also called for Google to be barred from acquiring, investing or collaborating with any company that controls consumer search for information, including query-based artificial intelligence products, according to the report.
The proposed remedies are "unlikely to be approved by the court, or survive an appeals process," a Baird analyst wrote in a note. If implemented, it could "seriously damage Google's competitive position in search" and generative artificial intelligence, the analyst was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.
"DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision," Kent Walker, Alphabet's chief legal officer, said in a blog post on the company's website. "It would break a range of Google products — even beyond Search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives."
Share your thoughts on Alphabet in the comments section. Is the DOJ news enough to shake investor confidence on Alphabet beyond today's share price move?
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Luzi Ann Santos
Moomoo Senior News and Community Manager
Former editor at Bloomberg, ex-commentary editor at Lazard. Posts aren’t investment advice. Views are just mine.
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Super White 超级白❤ :
l0lBElBgG : k
Kraks : Aside that a decision like that will harm not only Google but the whole American market (it's clear who's and where is the leader today, but a breakup can open the door to Chinese players now working mainly on China soil) the final verdict after appeals cannot be executed before 2 years time giving ample time to find escape.
What I see as more likely to happen is a ban for exclusive contracts like the one with Apple, but this may not necessarily be a bad thing: Google is the leader by choice nowadays, in Europe -where there's the option to choose-:the market share is basically the same.
Luzi Ann Santos OP Kraks : That’s a good point. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
72168175 : so no acquiring, investing or collaborating with any company that controls consumer search for information, including query-based artificial intelligence products, according to the report. so instead of Google doj needs to give me a Internet platform so sundar doesn't have to be forced to sell because I want to invest very soon where it's ok