Breakfast News: Alphabet And Blackstone Team Up

Breakfast News: Alphabet And Blackstone Team Up

May 19, 2026

| Monday's Markets | | --- | | S&P 500 7,403 (-0.07%) | | Nasdaq 26,091 (-0.51%) | | Dow 49,686 (+0.32%) | | Bitcoin $76,955 (-1.54%) |

Source: Image created by Jester AI.

1. GOOG and BX Push AI With New Company

The WSJ reports** Alphabet** (GOOG +0.03%) and Blackstone (BX +2.25%) have announced the launch of a joint AI venture, with Blackstone providing an initial $5 billion of equity investment, as Wall Street continues to deepen ties with the AI build-out race.

• "This new company has enormous potential as it helps to meet the unprecedented demand for compute": Jon Gray, president and COO of Blackstone, explained the tie-up will allow customers to access Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), alongside offering data center capacity and related operations.
• Investment in AI's hard assets becomes increasingly appealing: As of the latest earnings, Blackstone has over $150 billion in data-center assets, with Alphabet inking regular deals expanding infrastructure. The new company aims to bring 500 megawatts of capacity online by 2027, a similar amount needed to power electricity for a midsize city.

2. INTC Makes Progress on Foundry Business

Intel (INTC +7.37%) CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the manufacturing foundry business is gaining traction, being "one of the key national treasures," as it continues to emerge as a key component of the turnaround plan.

• "The best practice is to see 7% or 8% yield improvement per month, and now I'm seeing it": Tan pointed out the improvements in the manufacturing process, with the yield (the percentage of usable chips from each wafer) now exceeding expectations.
• "Tom believes that the market is completely missing the hidden value of Intel's manufacturing empire": Back in March, Fool contributing analyst Rachel Warren discussed the company with TMF co-founder Tom Gardner, noting "Tom expects the real driver of the stock to be the Intel Foundry business as it becomes a massive, high-margin revenue engine."

3. Next Up: Earnings and Data to Show Consumer Health

• Home Depot (HD +2.69%) rose around 1% ahead of the opening bell, with the Dividend Investor rec beating analyst expectations for quarterly revenue and earnings. CFO Richard McPhail said "the homeowner in a relevant sense is perhaps more protected financially than other customer cohorts and so we continue to see engagement."
• CAVA Group (CAVA +2.71%) releases earnings after the market closes. After posting a mixed bag last quarter, investors will be hoping for better same-store sales with recent menu changes. The stock is outperforming the S&P 500 by 46% since the October 2023 Rule Breakers rec.
• U.S. pending home sales set to indicate continued growth: April data due at 10am E.T. is expected to show a 1.5% month over month (MoM) increase, matching the impressive 1.5% MoM increase from March, showing resilience in both the housing market and the general consumer.

4. Your Take

CAVA is up over 35% in 2026's AI-fueled market rally so far – a better year-to-date performance than Alphabet can boast, for instance!

What other stocks have shot up considerably this year, which you still believe can easily beat the market over 3-5 years from now, and why?

Debate with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying!