Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), headquartered in Mountain View, California, is a global tech giant and the parent company of Google. With an impressive market cap of $2.1 trillion, Alphabet's remarkable growth is driven by its diverse product portfolio, particularly Google Search's dominance in the global search engine market.
Shares of the blue-chip tech company have significantly outperformed the broader market over the past 52 weeks. GOOGL has gained 29.4% over this time frame, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has rallied 20.5%. In 2024, shares of GOOGL are up 22.8%, compared to SPX's 15.8% gains on a YTD basis.
Zooming in further, GOOGL also surpasses the First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund’s (FDN) 15.8% gains over the past 52 weeks.
GOOGL stock surged by about 58% in 2023 and has continued its upward trend into 2024. Alphabet’s dominance in digital advertising, expanding cloud business, AI integration into its products, and innovation in emerging tech sectors suggest that its stock momentum could persist.
But it's not all sunshine and rainbow for the stock. Despite Alphabet's strong Q2 earnings report released on July 23, which surpassed Wall Street's revenue and EPS estimates, the stock fell over 8% in the subsequent trading sessions due to a miss in YouTube advertising revenue and weak forward guidance for the third quarter.
For the current fiscal year, ending in December, analysts expect GOOGL to report EPS growth of 31.4% to $7.62. Moreover, Alphabet has an excellent earnings surprise history. It beat the consensus estimate in each of the last four quarters.
Among the 44 analysts covering the stock, the consensus rating is a “Strong Buy.” That’s based on 34 “Strong Buy” ratings, three “Moderate Buys,” and seven “Holds.”
The current consensus is slightly more bullish than a month ago, with a 33 “Strong Buy” rating.
On July 31, Phillip Securities upgraded Alphabet's rating from “Accumulate” to “Buy” and increased its price target from $195 to $205. The firm highlighted Alphabet's leadership in digital advertising and its strong position in artificial intelligence, citing products like the Gemini chatbot, AI assistant, and Waymo autonomous vehicles.
The mean price target of $204.47 represents a premium of 19.2% to GOOGL's current price levels.
On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
