The company is being accused of using anticompetitive tactics in its mobile app store
Notable outperformer, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is taking a breather today, off 1.4% at $2,493.40 at last check, following news that a group of state attorneys general have brought a new antitrust lawsuit upon Google. The tech company is facing allegations that it has used anticompetitive tactics in order to take 80% commission from consumers purchasing subscriptions and digital content on their Android devices. App developers, meanwhile, have said Google's app store is the only option made available on the Android phone, giving them no other options for distribution. This marks the fourth antitrust lawsuit filed against Google this year.
The equity just yesterday nabbed a record high of $2,545.68, just one week after showing up on a list of best performing S&P 500 stocks in July. It looks like GOOGL still has several layers of potential support sitting just below, including its 20-day moving average, which contained some of the stock's middling price action last month. Alphabet stock is up roughly 44% in 2021.
A short-term breather for GOOGL isn't all that surprising, especially considering the equity's Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 73, which is firmly entrenched in "overbought" territory. Plus, it looks like a number of options bears have been banking on the stock cooling off. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), Alphabet stock sports a 50-day put/call volume ratio that sits in the 69th percentile of its annual range. This suggests options players have been a bit more partial to long puts of late.