The Smartest Growth Stock to Buy With $3,000 Right Now

James Brumley, The Motley Fool

Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 9:35 AM 7 min read

It has been a rough three-month stretch for Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) shareholders. Not only has marketwide weakness taken a toll on the stock, but what little hope was left that the company wouldn't be forced to divest itself of its Chrome web browser is seemingly slipping away. All told, shares of Google's parent are down 20% from their early February peak even after Thursday's post-earnings bounce.

If you've got an extra $3,000 you'd like to invest during this market dip, though, the stock's still certainly worth considering. While there's no denying Alphabet is a stronger company with Chrome than without it, the market's worries that it can't thrive without its home-grown browser are a bit overblown. That spells opportunity for you.

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Don't misunderstand. Alphabet would really, really like to hold onto its in-house browser. Numbers from Statcounter indicate that Chrome's share of the global browser market stands at a solid 66%. Given that Google is Chrome's default search engine, not only does this mean most of the world's internet users are steered toward Google, but Chrome itself provides Google with information -- through third-party "cookies" -- that helps the search engine display more relevant ads to individual users.

More relevant ads, of course, mean better returns on marketing spending for advertisers, and more revenue for the search engine that displays those ads. That's why Alphabet has been fighting to hold onto Chrome even as the Department of Justice has pushed in its antitrust lawsuit for Alphabet to divest it. The DOJ argues that Google is operating a monopoly ... which in many regards, it is.

To say that Google's search business is wholly dependent on outright ownership of Chrome, however, isn't entirely accurate.

Oh, owning the browser helps -- to be sure. However, Alphabet has seemingly been preparing for the sale of Chrome for some time now. Although it is not nearly as powerful as third-party cookies, the first-party web cookie tech that Google's been refining since early last year is promising as a tool for providing detailed marketing data about particular individuals. These first-party cookies also work with any web browser -- not just Chrome. In this vein, investors should be encouraged that Google still handles nearly 90% of the world's web queries (again according to Statcounter), a bunch of which obviously aren't being made using a Chrome browser.