Alphabet (GOOGL), the parent company of Google, racked up $7.7 billion in capital expenditures for the first three months of 2018 leaving investors wondering if Google’s investments will pay off or if they should worry about a spending problem.
The company reported strong growth in sales and profit but its investment decisions are dividing Wall Street.
Google’s stock fell as much as 5% in early trading Tuesday.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s CFO, told analysts on a conference call Monday, “These combined investments will expand our compute capacity to support our growth outlook across Google, including machine learning, the Assistant and cloud,” Porat said.
Let’s take a look at how ETFs with exposure to Google parent, Alphabet, are trading Tuesday according to Yahoo Finance at 2 p.m. Eastern time.
10 ETFs with Google’s parent company, Alphabet down
- Davis Select U.S. Equity ETF (USA) with a 8.97% weighting down 0.58%.
- PowerShares NASDAQ Internet Portfolio (PNQI) with a 7.71% weighting down 2.41%.
- Motley Fool 100 Index ETF (TMFC) with a 7.19% weighting down 1.85%.
- Davis Select Worldwide ETF (DWLD) with a 6.28% weighting down 0.84%.
- iShares U.S. Technology ETF (IYW) with a 6.01% weighting down 1.83%.
- Ivy Focused Growth NextShares (IVFGC) with a 5.82% weighting saw no change.
- Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) with a 5.19% weighting down 1.85%.
- iShares Evolved U.S. Technology ETF (IETC) with a 5.08% weighting up .47%.
- AdvisorShares New Tech and Media ETF (FNG) with a 5.01% weighting down 2.76%
- Fidelity MSCI Information Technology Index ETF (FTEC) with a 4.96% weighting down 2.05%.
Google Spending Problem? Smart Investment?
“The big story from the results was the significant rise in expenses,” Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research, wrote in an investor note Monday night.
Alphabet spent $2.4 billion in March to buy Chelsea Market in Manhattan to expand its office space, invested in data centers, production equipment and undersea cables, and invested $1.1 billion to get smartphone expertise from Taiwanese manufacturer HTC.
Related: Google Will Now Earn From Your Shopping Searches
Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie, wrote in an investor note about Google Tuesday, “It sees very large opportunities for long-term growth (search, YouTube, Cloud, cars, health, etc…) and it is going to invest in them,” Schachter said. “This is absolutely the correct thing to do and will over the long term increase shareholder value.”
The question is will Google’s investing payoff to be as lucrative as its search engine?
Only time will tell.