Google just cleared a psychological hurdle: $300 a share. If you felt your phone buzz last night, that was Alphabet popping champagne — and setting off a new round of “is this the top?” debates.

On Nov. 19, Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL) ripped through $300 intraday and printed a fresh record high around $303–$304 before settling near $293 by the close. Volume spiked, and both share classes notched new 52-week highs. Year to date, Alphabet is up roughly 54%, putting it at — or near — the front of the Magnificent Seven pack. 

What lit the fuse? Google officially rolled out Gemini 3 Pro, its newest flagship AI model, with Google’s blog touting better reasoning and multimodal chops. Developers also got a new “agent-first” coding IDE called Antigravity that’s built around Gemini 3 Pro. In other words: product, not just promise. 

Fundamentals aren’t shabby either. Alphabet’s Q3 sales grew 16% to about $102 billion, with operating margins expanding — a helpful backdrop when the stock is marching to new highs. On valuation, the forward P/E sits around 26x, still a discount to some mega-cap peers. 

Three forces are driving this leg:

1) A credible AI story. Gemini 3 isn’t a press-release mascot; it’s shipping into products and tools that developers actually use. That’s the kind of “show me” progress investors rewarded when Microsoft rode the GPT wave in 2023 — and it’s what Google’s been racing to prove all year. 

2) Clearing old clouds. The lingering antitrust overhang eased after a remedies ruling this fall that stopped short of the harshest outcomes. The takeaway: uncertainty went down, multiples went up. 

3) The numbers support the narrative. Advertising is steady, Cloud is re-accelerating with AI workloads, and management has leaned into capex for chips and data centers — the picks and shovels for this gold rush. 

So…peak or pause? A few lenses to keep handy:

• Leaderboard context. Alphabet leading the MAG7 in 2025 is a twist, especially with Nvidia still putting up big gains. Momentum can be sticky, but leadership can rotate fast — remember how Microsoft took the crown during the GPT breakout in 2023. 

• Valuation vs. delivery. ~26x forward earnings isn’t nosebleed for a company growing double-digits with rising margins — but at record highs, the market will want proof that Gemini-powered Search, YouTube, and Cloud can translate into durable revenue per user and higher AI attach rates. Next updates on user adoption and Cloud backlog will matter. 

• Execution bottlenecks. Everyone is racing for compute. If AI infrastructure or power constraints slow rollouts, revenue timing could slip — a theme across Big Tech this year. Watch capex cadence and any commentary on TPU/Nvidia supply. 

• Regulatory and competition watch. The remedy decision reduced tail risk, not scrutiny. Meanwhile, Microsoft-OpenAI, Meta, and the open-model crowd won’t stand still. Product velocity is the defense. 

Bottom line: Alphabet didn’t just cross $300; it earned the right to test it. With Gemini 3 Pro live and fundamentals improving, Google feels less like a meme spike and more like a company finally syncing the story with the scoreboard. Whether this is the top of the year’s run or a new chapter depends on one thing — converting AI excitement into repeatable dollars. For now, the market’s giving Google the benefit of the doubt.