Alphabet (GOOG 9.96%) (GOOGL 10.22%) owns and operates some of the most widely used digital properties on Earth. There are no other websites in the world that are visited more than the company's two key assets, Google and YouTube. And Alphabet has many other products and services that consumers, businesses, and governments need in their daily lives.

This success has made Alphabet a winning investment in the past. Shares have soared 367% in the last decade, a gain that far exceeds the 272% rise of the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index.

Here's why I think this is the best growth stock to buy with $1,000 right now.

Strong financial performance

The days of Alphabet posting greater-than-20% year-over-year revenue growth might be gone. But despite macro headwinds that rattled the economy, particularly higher interest rates, inflationary pressures, and ongoing economic uncertainty, the company reported a sales gain of 9.8% in 2022 and 8.7% last year. This is healthy expansion given the slowdown in the digital ad market.

Alphabet is also incredibly profitable. Thanks to cost-cutting measures implemented to right-size operations, like eliminating tens of thousands of workers, the operating margin expanded to 27% in Q4 2023, up from 24% in the prior-year period. The business has shown its ability to boost the bottom line at a faster clip than revenue, a clear sign of its economies of scale.

Turning our attention from the income statement to the balance sheet, Alphabet proves once again that it's a superior enterprise. As of Dec. 31, it had roughly $111 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. This compared to just $13 billion of long-term debt. This favorable situation reduces financial risk, while giving Alphabet the valuable ability to continue investing aggressively in growth opportunities no matter what the economic backdrop looks like.

One of the widest moats around

Google Search, which brought in more than half of the company's revenue last quarter, remains Alphabet's bread-and-butter segment. With 91% of the global market for search activity, this product has a monopoly in the industry, even with all the attention that has gone to OpenAI's ChatGPT and its integration with Microsoft's Bing.

Google Search benefits from powerful network effects. As the internet expands and the amount of information grows, users will depend more and more on Google Search's ability to organize all of this. And because of all this activity, marketers will continue to spend ad dollars on this three-sided platform.

Besides the network effect, which on its own is probably one of the strongest sources of economic moat on the face of the planet, Alphabet benefits from having a data advantage because of the billions of users that interact with its products and services daily. In the internet age, one in which the world is becoming increasingly digital, this gives the business another edge.

Valuation and growth

Thanks to such an impressive past performance for the stock, coupled with this being one of the most successful enterprises of all time, Alphabet today carries a market cap of over $1.7 trillion. This makes it the sixth-most-valuable business in the world. But that doesn't mean that shares can't reward investors going forward.

As of this writing, the stock sells for a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 24.4. The current valuation looks extremely attractive relative to those of other "Magnificent Seven" stocks, as Alphabet trades at a lower P/E multiple than all of them.

Looking ahead, Wall Street is optimistic. Analysts expect revenue and diluted earnings per share to rise at annualized rates of 10.6% and 15.3%, respectively, between 2023 and 2026. While it's always a good idea to take these forecasts with a grain of salt, based on the company's track record, investors have every right to remain bullish.

Allocating $1,000 to Alphabet looks to be a smart financial decision.