Alphabet delivers blowout earnings, undercuts ‘sell America’ narrative

If this is what "Sell America" looks like, sign us all up for more.

Alphabet just released a first-quarter earnings report that blew past the Street's already optimistic bottom-line forecasts, delivering $30.6 billion in operating income compared to the $28.7 billion expected. Revenue clocked in at $90.23 billion, comfortably ahead of estimates, and net income soared a staggering 46% year-over-year. EPS landed at $2.81 versus $2.01 expected. And the stock? Up 5% after hours, dragging the Nasdaq and risk sentiment higher in tow.

This is happening while the media narrative still wants you to believe the U.S. is in the early stages of a capital flight crisis, triggered by tariff saber-rattling and headline whiplash from Washington. But the market clearly has other ideas.

What we just saw from Google is not what a terminally weak U.S. economy looks like. This is what resilient earnings power looks like from a company still deploying massive capex ($17.2 billion this quarter, a record) into AI infrastructure and still growing earnings at breakneck speed. AI is not just a buzzword here—it’s driving paid subscriber growth, monetization across Google services, and expanding cloud margins.

Let’s be clear: Alphabet isn’t hiding from macro risks, but it’s absorbing them. There’s zero sign of a demand cliff in advertising or enterprise cloud, even if growth rates have cooled modestly. And while tariffs may hit parts of the economy, Google’s business model is tilted toward the upstream digital layer of global commerce—where trade barriers don’t matter as much as data dominance and engagement economics.

And while the narrative machine keeps feeding “Sell America” to the masses, what’s actually happening is a quiet, relentless bid for quality U.S. tech. Google just authorized another $70 billion in share buybacks and hiked its dividend by 5%. Those are not the moves of a company panicking about capital flight or policy risk. That’s a flex.

So let’s stop pretending that macro fearmongering is doing more than jolting a few algos for a couple of hours a day. Because the tape doesn’t lie—and the tape just told you that U.S. exceptionalism, led by tech, still has teeth.

Here’s the kicker: despite the tariff noise, AI infrastructure is becoming the new battleground. And Alphabet is deploying at scale, eating its own chips and rewriting the platform playbook. If you’re still talking about trade flows and goods tariffs like it’s 2005, you’re missing the bigger game entirely. This isn’t about widgets. It’s about code.

So next time someone asks you whether “Sell America” is a real theme, show them tonight’s after-hours chart and say: yeah, sure—right after they buy another $70 billion in stock.

The view

You’d think by now we’d be numb to the media cycle's favourite rinse-and-repeat narrative: "Sell America." The minute volatility ticks up or policy uncertainty creeps into the headlines, the echo chamber kicks in—cue the doom scroll, the “end of U.S. exceptionalism” think pieces, and the parade of experts calling for a mass foreign exodus from U.S. markets.

But let’s pump the brakes—and bring the data back into the conversation.

According to JPMorgan, this "Sell America" mantra that’s dominated financial headlines lately is more noise than signal. Despite Trump’s return to headline management via tariff policy and foreign policy feints, foreign investors haven’t exactly hit the eject button. If anything, they’ve held steady. U.S. equity and bond ETFs traded offshore? Still seeing net inflows. Custody data at the Fed? No red flags. Recent Treasury auctions? ( until this week) Still strong bid-to-cover ratios, including from foreign accounts.

What’s really been driving the tape lower? Not Beijing, not Brussels, and not me in Bangkok (LOL I’m taking signals from retail) . It’s closer to home: US hedge funds.

JPMorgan estimates that equity-focused hedge funds—both quantitative and discretionary—have dumped roughly $750 billion in U.S. equities year to date. That tracks with what we’ve seen in the futures complex too, where significant outflows from S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 contracts have lined up with the most violent parts of the selloff.

In other words, this wasn’t a geopolitical repudiation of U.S. assets. This was a leverage unwind—classic hedge fund positioning stress, not a macro vote of no confidence.

Yet the media spin told a different story—one that conveniently aligned with the prevailing editorial tone( Trump’s Bad) . You’ve seen it: the same talking heads rolling out the same narrative arcs about the “end of U.S. dominance,” based mainly on feel, not flows. Meanwhile, anyone watching ETF tape or central bank data could see the disconnect. But that’s the game, isn’t it? Perception sells. Data bores.

This is where experienced traders need to tune out the noise and re-anchor to what matters. The media obsesses over why the market is doing something, even if it means retrofitting a story to fit the move. But as traders, we know the truth: the news doesn't move markets—price moves first, and the news comes second.

We don’t get paid to be right in theory—we get paid to interpret what the market is actually pricing in, not what the nightly roundup thinks it should. And that means recognizing when narratives are being spun from the top floor of a media tower instead of a trading desk.

So let’s be clear: “Sell America” isn’t some great awakening. It’s a misread of positioning stress masquerading as macro insight. Foreigners aren’t dumping Treasuries. Equity ETFs are still drawing bids. And the worst of the hedge fund selling may already be in the rear-view mirror.

The lesson? Stick to the data. Not the drama. Because if you’re trading based on televised opinion pieces instead of fund flow charts, you’re playing the wrong game.

And if you think long-term global capital is moving to Europe or Asia en masse, go check the last ten years of return dispersion. Spoiler: narrative rotation isn’t the same as capital rotation.