Quietly, shares of Google-parent Alphabet are on the verge of topping $5 trillion, and overtaking AI-leader Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company.
And according to options prices, it may happen sooner rather than later.
The breakout in shares of Alphabet after a 10% surge on Thursday brings the company’s 1-year gain to 140% and a market capitalization over $4.6 trillion. The company reported revenue Wednesday that beat analyst estimates and Google Cloud revenue that surpassed $20 billion.
At the same time, the world’s biggest company — AI Kingpin Nvidia, now trading with a market cap under $4.9 trillion — is down more than 6% in two days following a Wall Street Journal report that business partner OpenAI missed internal revenue and growth estimates.
If Nvidia doesn’t rally into or after its report on May 20 — and the stock has indeed fallen after four of its last five earnings reports — the options market says odds are Alphabet will trade as the world’s biggest company as early as May 15.
Here’s the math: for Alphabet to achieve Nvidia’s current market cap, the stock needs to rally another 4% or so, to roughly $401 per share.
Based on the premiums paid for call contracts around that strike, options traders are assigning about a 53% chance it could touch that level at any point between now and May 15.
The odds Alphabet will close above $400 exactly on May 22, the Friday after NVIDIA earnings is about 30%, according to data from ThinkOrSwim.
The last time Alphabet was the world’s most valuable company was in 2016, when it briefly nudged Apple from the top spot.
