Alphabet shares plunge 13% on weak Search revenue and AI spending

Alphabet shares plunged 13% on Thursday after third-quarter earnings, putting nearly $500 billion in market value at risk in what could be its worst single-day fall since going public in 2004. The decline followed weak Google Search revenue, which rose 12% to about $63 billion, missing analyst estimates of roughly $65 billion. Alphabet's free cash flow also turned negative at about $9 billion due to heavy AI infrastructure spending, while Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $31 billion and Gemini surpassed 1 billion users. The loss would rank as the second-biggest one-day market value wipeout for a US-listed company, behind Nvidia's $593 billion drop on January 27, 2025. Alphabet's market value has fallen about $1.4 trillion since May, and investors now await Amazon's earnings to assess whether AI spending pressures are sector-wide.