Most ASX investors looking for their next share purchase are probably eyeing off Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS), or perhaps Pro Medicus Ltd (ASX: PME). Hopping across the proverbial pond and buying, for example, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) shares is probably not on most investors' radar.
Yet that could be a mistake. The ASX is home to some fine companies, to be sure. But the US markets house the best in the business. The likes of CBA or Telstra are simply not even in the same league as US stocks like Coca-Cola, Nvidia, or Alphabet when it comes to size, scale, and dominance.
Of all the US stocks available on the American markets, I think Alphabet is one of the best picks for ASX investors with a long-term horizon. This company has so many things going for it that it is hard to oversell.
Firstly, we have Google Search, a service we'd all be familiar with. To say that Google Search is dominant is a gross understatement. It has a near-monopoly on internet search in almost every country in the world, except China.
Alphabet has been able to leverage this with incredible effect by integrating it with its 'Google Ads' advertising business. This makes advertising with Google cheap and effective for customers, and highly profitable for the company.
Indeed, Alphabet can probably be considered the largest advertising business in the world, rivalled only by its Magnificent 7 peer, Meta Platforms.
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Alphabet shares: Here's what you're buying
But Search and Ads are only two arrows in Alphabet's quiver (albeit the biggest ones). The company also owns the YouTube platform in its entirety. YouTube is another business that you get with buying Alphabet shares that could be described as monopolistic. It simply has no effective rivals in its field. It is another advertising juggernaut and integrates well with Google Search and Ads. As do Google Maps and Gmail.
Aside from Google Search, Maps, Gmail, and YouTube, Alphabet also offers a leading artificial intelligence platform, Gemini. Like most AI platforms, Gemini is soaking up far more capital than it is bringing home right now. However, given its leading status amongst its rivals, I think there is a lot of potential for Gemini to become yet another cash cow for Alphabet shares in the years ahead.
It's a similar story with Google Cloud, Alphabet's back-end rival to the highly successful AWS from Amazon. Google Cloud is already profitable and is growing at a healthy rate.
There's also Alphabet's high-risk, high-reward 'Other Bets', of which self-driving car division Waymo is probably the most exciting.
So all in all, you have a collection of some of the most exciting (and profitable in many cases), wide-moat businesses in the world, all under one roof.
Alphabet is currently (at the time of writing) trading on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 27.75. That, at least in my view, isn't a bad entry price for this exciting company. As such, I think Alphabet shares are well worth considering for any ASX share portfolio today.
