** Alphabet GOOGL.O on Wednesday reported its best-ever quarter of growth for its cloud computing division, but faced investor scrutiny after concerns about continued delays to its flagship AI model were aggravated by a $15 billion increase in capital spending plans for 2026

** Shares down 3.6% to $329.6 premarket

BIG PICTURE POSITIVE

** Morgan Stanley ("overweight," PT: $400) says Google's cloud backlog growth supports expectations for durable long-term demand

** "Big picture, we continue to view hyperscaler revenue growth and EBIT margins as the cleanest near-term signals on GenAI investment ROIC," -Morgan Stanley

** Piper Sandler ("overweight," PT: $395) says, "the business model appears to be morphing rapidly from high margin ads to one dominated by Cloud where FCF is almost certainly negative in '27"

** Roth MKM ("buy," PT: $440) sees Google as a "top-tier, long-term AI compounder across its full stack and would use near-term weakness to add to positions"

** Canaccord Genuity ("buy," PT: $450) says they're constructive on co's ability to continue delivering and monetizing frontier-level AI capabilities