Investors are expressing concerns over potential antitrust actions against Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. The company's stock (GOOGL, Financial) saw a decrease of about 1% in pre-market trading following news that the U.S. Department of Justice informed a federal judge of its consideration to recommend that Google be compelled to sell parts of its business. Such a move would represent a historic antitrust breakup.
Kevin Thozet, a member of the investment committee at French asset management firm Carmignac, noted that while worries about regulatory action against major tech companies have been persistent, the possible breakup scenario is impacting market sentiment. However, he suggested that the eventual impact might be mitigated since evaluating the individual value of Google's business lines could be advantageous for investors.
