Alphabet Shares Plunge Up to 13%, Erasing Roughly $500 Billion in Value After Earnings

Alphabet, Google's parent company, saw its shares fall as much as 13% on Thursday after its third-quarter earnings report, erasing roughly $500 billion in market value in the worst single-day performance in its history. The Daily Mail put the loss at $482 billion. Search revenue rose 12% to about $63 billion, short of the roughly $65 billion Wall Street expected. Total revenue was $127.58 billion, up 25% from a year earlier but below the $128.22 billion forecast. Adjusted earnings were $2.67 per share against $3.02 expected, and free cash flow was negative $9.07 billion. Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to about $31 billion. Alphabet held its full-year capital spending guidance at $195 billion to $205 billion. The Daily Mail said it was the second-largest one-day value loss for a US-listed company, behind Nvidia's $593 billion in January 2025.

NBC News, the left-leaning outlet here, leads with the AI-bubble question, calling it a historically bad day. Its report looks at big tech's spending and AI's effect on the job market, and the excerpt gives no earnings figures. The right-leaning Daily Mail and Breitbart also cite bubble fears or record losses, but focus on numbers. The Daily Mail stresses historical comparisons, including the 2008 and 2020 declines and Nvidia's loss, along with the cloud-versus-search split. Breitbart relies on CNBC for detailed misses on earnings, net income, operating income and cash flow, and on capital spending. Semafor, the alternative outlet, adds a separate angle: an analyst's worry that AI is taking share from search, and tougher terms on AI debt deals.