JMP Securities cited “the risk of antitrust penalties that could significantly impact Google’s U.S. distribution of search and search revenue.”

Google stock posted a big gain in 2024 but AI-driven competition in the internet search business and DoJ antitrust cases still loom.

META released its latest model of Llama Large Language Model (LLM) and it has forced both Google and Amazon to rethink their LLM strategy. The new Llama 3.3 70B model outperforms Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro and GPT-40 and Amazon’s Nova Pro on various benchmarks.

The shares had a strong run in 2024, but 2025 doesn’t look as promising, according to Citizen JMP Securities analyst Andrew Boone.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) had a solid 2024, with the stock up over 40% as of the time of writing. Furthermore, the stock is attractively priced, making Alphabet a great stock to consider heading into the new year.

A judge ruled in August that the company has a monopoly in general search services and general text advertising. The question now is what should be done about it.

Alphabet GOOGL over the past quarter, offering a diverse set of opinions from bullish to bearish. Summarizing their recent assessments, the table below illustrates the evolving sentiments in the past 30 days and compares them to the preceding months.

JMP Securities has downgraded Alphabet shares (GOOG, GOOGL) to Market Perform from Outperform, citing concerns over pending antitrust litigation. The firm believes the Department of Justice case, expected to conclude in August 2025,

The company also rolled out groundbreaking technologies, rounded out its AI strategy despite a slew of embarrassing product incidents.

Synaptics explained that the agreement will integrate Google's machine learning core with its Synaptics Astra hardware. It noted that the combination will speed up development of AI devices for the IoT "that support the processing of vision, image, voice, sound, and other modalities" used in a range of applications.

The shares of Synaptics Inc (NASDAQ:SYNA) are up 5.9% at $80.85 at last glance, after news that the semiconductor name is partnering with Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) to enhance artificial intelligence (AI) for the internet-of-things (IoT) network. GOOGL was last seen up 0.4%, brushing off a downgrade from JMP Securities to "market perform."

Brookfield Renewable, Pepsi, and UPS are three high-yield stocks ideally suited for passive-income investors. The S&P 500 up over 55% in the last two years. Naturally, investors are likely wondering how much longer the bull market rally can go.