Google owner’s value hits $2,000,000,000,000

The owner of Google saw its value top $2 trillion for the first time yesterday.

Shares in Alphabet soared more than 10pc after it outlined plans to pay its first dividend and launched a £56bn share buyback.

The company also said revenues rose 15pc to £65bn in the first three months of the year.

That was higher than the £63bn analysts had pencilled in.

As shares surged past 10pc, that added nearly £160bn to Alphabet’s value, leaving it worth around $2.1 trillion or £1.7 trillion.

It is the fourth listed company to hit this milestone following tech giants Apple and Microsoft and oil major Saudi Aramco.

Social media platform Snap joined in the rally, surging nearly 30pc, after it posted a solid set of first-quarter results.

Sales rose 21pc to £960m alongside a 10pc rise in daily active users to 422m. The tech firm added that its technology was used in February’s Super Bowl event for the first time.

Snap founder evan Spiegel, who is married to the Australian model Miranda Kerr, saw the value of his stake rise by £105m.

Back in London, the FTSE 100 continued its record-breaking run as it hit an intra- day high of 8146.79. The blue chip index ended the session up 0.8pc, or 60.97 points, at 8139.83 – a record close.

That took gains for the week to 3.1pc – its best weekly performance since September last year. Russ Mould, investment director at broker AJ Bell, hailed a ‘fantastic’ week for the FTSe 100.

he said: ‘We’ve had record highs, yet more takeover action, and everyone is talking about UK stocks in a positive way which hasn’t been seen for ages. The breadth of sectors moving higher suggests investor sentiment continues to improve.’

The FTSE 250 added 1.1pc, or 222.18 points, to 19824.16.

engineering firm Senior said revenues rose 7pc in first quarter to the end of March.

This included a 12pc increase in sales for its aerospace arm.

The update came a day after the company said it will be paid £104m to work with Spirit AeroSystems for another five years to supply components for Boeing aircraft. Shares added 0.4pc, or 0.6p, to 164.4p. the restaurant, bar and cafe operator, made record sales last year as it opened its highest number of new sites.

The company’s revenues surged 24.7pc to £353.5m in the 12 months to April 21 while profit should beat market expectations as soaring costs eased.

Loungers opened a record 36 sites last year, taking its total to nearly 260. Shares rose 2.2pc, or 5p, to 236p.

Green energy firm ITM Power has teamed up with hygen to become its preferred supplier for specialist electrolysers used in hydrogen projects in the UK and europe.

Dennis Schulz, chief executive of the London-listed firm, said the partnership should play a ‘leading role in advancing the green hydrogen economy’.

ITM shares rose 2.2pc, or 1.1p, to 51.1p.