Alphabet steamrolled BI's stock bracket. Here are 4 things your picks revealed.
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- A winner has been crowned for Business Insider's stock bracket.
- Alphabet took down Amazon in the title match as the stock readers most want to own for the next 10 years.
- Sign up for First Trade, Business Insider's daily markets newsletter.
After three weeks of voting and general bracket madness, First Trade readership has selected ALPHABET as the Magnificent 7 (plus Palantir) stock they'd most like to own for the next 10 years.
The Google parent capped off a dominant run through the bracket, commanding 56% of final-round votes. Its opponent, Amazon — which squeaked through its previous two matchups — brought in a respectable 44%.
The bracket championship reaffirms what's already been made abundantly clear for months: Alphabet is a force to be reckoned with.
It's increasingly becoming an AI power player. It has a firm foundation of existing high-margin businesses, like Google Search and YouTube. Its cloud business is growing. Waymo gives it a presence in self-driving cars. It's everything everywhere all at once.
Given that you voted so overwhelmingly for Alphabet, you probably already know all of this. So let's get into other main takeaways from the first annual First Trade stock bracket:
You want to own what you know
Peter Lynch, the renowned Fidelity stock-picker who crushed the market for years, famously said: "buy what you know." That's exactly what you did with your bracket picks.
Generally speaking, the more tangible and widely accessible the company's product, the better it did in the bracket. Pretty much everyone has an iPhone — Apple routinely dismantled Tesla. Google has 90% market share in search — Alphabet destroyed Meta. And so on.
On the flip side: You avoided the speculative names
The two stocks with the most theoretical valuations — Tesla and Palantir — lost badly in the first round. They may have the most vocal retail-investor armies, but that didn't show up in the vote.
The fact that Tesla barely put up a fight against Apple was perhaps the surprise of the tournament for me. I underestimated how much voters would prioritize stability.
You want market experience
The semi-finals of our bracket featured four of the five companies that have been public the longest. As for the title game, is it a coincidence that both finalists — Alphabet and Amazon — are grizzled veterans with multiple decades of public-market experience? Probably not.
A lot can happen in 10 years, and it makes sense that investors would prefer the steady hand of a proven entity.
Meta just doesn't do it for you
The biggest blowout of the tournament came when Meta was unceremoniously routed by Alphabet in the first round, grabbing just 12% of the vote. This could speak to the strength of the opposition — Alphabet did win the whole thing, after all. But its two other opponents put up a much stiffer fight.
What gives? My best guess is that you're completely unmoved by Meta's AI ambitions. The company is spending tens of billions on something that may not yield results for years. That's enough to make you overlook a thriving ads business. It's a good stock … just not championship material.
If you voted and want to share any insights I missed, email me at jciolli@businessinsider.com.
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