The Cloud Backlog That Changed Everything For Google Stock

If you held Alphabet (GOOGL) stock over the past year, congratulations. You watched it deliver a +108% return, leaving the S&P 500’s +22% gain in the dust. It also trounced its mega-cap tech peers, with Microsoft (MSFT) falling 21% and Meta Platforms (META) dropping 14.0% over the same period. For years, the story was that Google’s core search business was a cash machine funding a perpetually third-place cloud effort. So what changed to justify this dramatic rerating.