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.
This post was originally published on CNBC Markets
