There's a solid argument to be made for most of the FAANG stocks right now. Just to name a couple examples, Amazon trades for less than half of its recent peak, and Netflix recently reported subscriber numbers that were dramatically better than analysts were expecting.

However, as we head into spring, there is one FAANG stock that looks like a particularly strong long-term opportunity while interest rates and inflation remain elevated and economic uncertainty persists: Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL 0.15%) (GOOG 0.13%). The company offers a rare combination of maturity, profitability, and growth potential, and with shares down by about 40% from their highs, it looks like a bargain for patient investors.

A core business with maturity and growth potential

Roughly 90% of Alphabet's revenue comes from Google Services, and to be fair, this is a collection of relatively mature, ad-driven businesses. The dominant Google Search platform is the biggest component, but this also includes YouTube, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, and other popular consumer-facing platforms.

There could still be significant growth potential on this side of the business, but it's not likely to happen in the years ahead. However, Google Services is a collection of rock-solid dominant businesses that produces a reliable stream of high-margin revenue.

On the other hand, Google Cloud, which currently accounts for about 10% of the company's revenue, could be a major growth driver in the years to come. It provides business collaboration tools, cloud storage, database services, content delivery networks (CDN), artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, app platforms, and much more. In all, Google Cloud offers more than 150 different products.

For the time being, Google Cloud is a relatively small part of the business, but that could change in the coming years. For one thing, Cloud is the fastest-growing part of the company, with revenue increasing 32% year over year in the fourth quarter. It is the only one of the big three cloud providers to gain significant share of the cloud infrastructure market in recent quarters (Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure are the leaders).

Not only that, but the cloud market itself is expanding rapidly. The cloud computing market was estimated at $484 billion in size in 2022, but is expected to more than triple by 2030 to a $1.55 trillion opportunity. If Google Cloud can increase its market share, this could end up being a big growth driver.

Lots of optionality

There are a few other reasons Alphabet is my favorite FAANG stock right now. The "other bets" segment doesn't produce much revenue currently, but that could potentially change in the future. The Waymo self-driving vehicle start-up is especially promising, but there are also some start-ups in healthcare and artificial intelligence, among other industries. To be clear, I'd buy Alphabet even if nothing ever came of these businesses -- but it's a nice addition to the tech titan's future potential. And it also doesn't limit the company's acquisition potential to just organizations that fit into the Google Services and Cloud segments.

Finally, it's important to consider Alphabet's stellar financial condition. The company has about $140 billion in cash and securities on its balance sheet, which gives it tremendous financial flexibility, especially when you consider it generated nearly $60 billion in net income over past four quarters alone. Alphabet can fund acquisition opportunities, reinvest in innovation, or opportunistically buy back shares as it sees fit.

Should you add Alphabet to your portfolio before the second half of 2023?

At some point, inflation will decline back toward historic levels and the Federal Reserve will back off of its interest rate increases, which could be an excellent catalyst for industries like advertising. More economic certainty would likely translate into more ad spending across the core Google Services businesses and would also make enterprise customers more comfortable increasing their spending on cloud services. So while I think Alphabet makes an excellent long-term investment regardless of timing, it could be an especially opportunistic buy while the stock is still about 40% below its highs due to the current economic uncertainty.