Alphabet and Apple Jumps After Google Antitrust Ruling, Nvidia Falls

On this edition of Stock Movers:

- Shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) jumped late Tuesday after a federal judge said Google doesn’t have to sell its popular Chrome web browser in the Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against the search engine. The ruling allows Google to avoid one of the most severe remedy requests from the US government after the court found the company had an illegal monopoly in the search market. Judge Amit Mehta did bar Google from entering into exclusive contracts for internet search. The finding follows Mehta’s ruling last year that Google illegally monopolized the markets for online search and search advertisements. Mehta held a three-week hearing in April to determine a fix. The order is one of the most monumental court decisions affecting the tech sector in more than a quarter century, and could offer a blueprint for other judges who may end up weighing similar choices in cases against Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. In another win for Google, the judge didn’t bar the company from making payments to third parties for default browser placement.

- Apple (AAPL) shares also gained in late trading as a result of the federal judges ruling that Google isn’t required to sell its Chrome web browser. Though Judge Amit Mehta ruled in an antitrust case that Google can’t enter exclusive contracts for internet search, deals that make the search provider a default option in internet browsers are still allowed. “Google is permitted to pay browser developers, like Apple,” he said in the decision. However, the partner company must promote other search engines, offer a different option in various operating systems or in privacy mode, and are allowed to make changes to the default search settings annually, Mehta wrote. “Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” he said. Apple currently favors the Google search engine by giving it the best placement in Safari search bar on computer and mobile devices. Users can opt to switch to Microsoft Corp.’s Bing, DuckDuckGo and other options. Apple also changed its iOS software two years ago to allow the use of a different search engine in private mode.

- Nvidia (NVDA) closed below a key technical level for the first time since May as investors continue to rotate out of the leading maker of artificial intelligence chips. The stock fell 2% to $170.74 on Tuesday, a fourth straight negative session that took it below its 50-day moving average of $171.06. Breaking under this closely watched level is seen as a negative sign of near-term momentum trends.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
The Stock Movers report, your roundup of companies making moves
in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm Jim Statveek along with Carol Mass, so let's take
a look at some stocks on the move today. We're
joined by Bloomberg News equities reporter Carmen Ryanicky Carmen lots
to choose from in the after hours.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, we have.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
A kind of exciting after hour session happening right now.
So I'm watching shares of Alphabet, so that's ticker Googl
and Apple AAPL. So Google Alphabet is up almost eight
percent right now. This is a huge jump. If this
keeps up, it'll be well above a record high tomorrow
when the market opens. And Apple is also up about

(00:49):
three point seven percent. And basically the reason that both
of these talks are up right now is that a
judge ruled that Alphabet's Google doesn't have to sell the
Chrome web browser. So that, I mean makes sense that
that's good for Alphabet. Antitrust is something that's really been hanging.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
Over the style. It's a big deal.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
The Apple move is interesting too, because we were initially
like well, why is Apple doing so well? And basically so,
these contracts are not exclusive and the payments can still
go from Alphabet to Google or sorry to Apple. So
basically it seems like the market is saying that the
Apple Alphabet relationship is going to keep going. This is

(01:30):
lots of money. It's something that had also been hanging
over Apple, right.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
So in another way, and the judge did not barrow
the company for making payments to third parties for default
browser placement, and for Apple, that's been some big money,
huge billions of dollars.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
What's kind of cool. The start of Perplexity made this
thirty four and a half billion dollar awful offer for
Chrome back on August twelfth, so about three weeks ago. Tomorrow,
it'll be interesting to see in terms of marketcap how
much is added to Alphabet and maybe that's that's one
sort of proxy for Okay, this is how investors are
valuing it is a recompany.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Smart takeaway.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
You know, wow, I've been doing this for fifteen years.
Sometimes every few years. Every few years there's a hidden
jab tarrow.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Great takeaway. I'm really impressed with that.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
To deal with current I mean billions of dollars. Even
just a one percent move for Google stock is no
sixteen seventeen billion dollars, So this is going to be
more than eight percent that it's up right now in
the wider hour.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So flexity, that was like a low ball offer. Maybe
maybe okay.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
Huh because what wait? What did you say? How many
sixteen seventeen?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
So I just pulled up. So Friday's move on Google
was less than one percent, and that was a fifteen
billion dollar change in the period.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
You're looking at, you know, eight and a half percent higher. Wow? Okay,
and video just before we go.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah, so the you know, the big stock that we're
always watching, shares of Nvidia fell today and they ended
just below their fifty day moving average technical level one
that a lot of people watch. I think this really
signals that there could you know, continue to be down
side momentum here for this stock. This is the fourth
street negative session for Nvidia. I mean obviously last week

(03:13):
it had earnings that didn't quite you know, make it
over the lofty bar that analysts and investors were overall expecting.
And then we've really just seen a sell off ever since,
which is weight on the entire market. So watching Nvidia tomorrow,
will see if it bounces, if we get some by
the dip, or if this continues to sell off.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Still up twenty seven percent here today, just saying also
like eighty percent from that April low.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I will point out too, it was you know, the
market was closed yesterday, but it was down.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Wednesday it fell ever so slightly. Thursday, it's down one
point four percent. Friday, excuse me, eight tens of one percent.
Friday it fell three point three percent.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Then today, if you look at something like RSI or
like Relative Strength Index, it's moving towards being over sold.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
So we'll see whether or not you do have some
other buyers coming in.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
The stockmover's report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with us
throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies making
news on Wall Street and for the latest market moving headlines.
Listen to Bloomberg Radio Live, catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg
dot com, and on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the
Bloomberg Business app.