Alphabet Stock Rises Premarket: Google Parent Gets Big Price-Target Hike As Q3 Earnings Loom

• Stifel said its checks showed Q3 advertising growth trends generally improved from Q2.
• The company is scheduled to report its Q3 results after the market closes on Wednesday.
• The stock currently trades just shy of its all-time intraday high of $257.33 reached this Monday.

Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL) (GOOG) is on retail traders’ radar this week amid a raft of headlines regarding the company. Bullish commentary issued by a Wall Street firm could add to the buoyancy in the final session of the week, as the Sundar Pichai-led company prepares to release its quarterly results next week.

Alphabet’s stock, which is down marginally for the week, traded up over 1% in Friday’s early premarket session.

Stifel Bullish Ahead Of Q3 Results

In a broader research note covering digital advertising companies, released late Thursday, Stifel said its checks showed third-quarter advertising growth trends generally improved relative to the previous quarter, the Fly reported. The strength was more back-end loaded during the quarter, the firm added. As such, the firm raised its price target for Alphabet stock to $292 from $222, implying roughly 16% upside from Thursday’s closing price of $253.08. Stifel attributed the action to its improved next-12-month multiple and favorable antitrust remedies for the Search business.

The firm, however, sounded cautious about the fourth quarter due to tougher comparisons and continued macro uncertainty, despite a positive ad spending environment. 

Alphabet’s See-Saw Week

The Google parent’s stock started the week on a firm note amid broader market strength, but came under significant pressure on Tuesday after OpenAI unveiled its ChatGPT browser Atlas, triggering a sell-off amid competition concerns.

The stock rebounded over the subsequent two sessions, buoyed by the company's new quantum algorithm and reports of a multi-billion-dollar cloud computing deal with Anthropic. The Amazon-backed artificial intelligence (AI) startup later confirmed that it plans to expand its use of Google Cloud technologies, including up to one million TPUs. The expansion is worth tens of billions of dollars and is expected to bring well over a gigawatt of capacity online in 2026.

Additionally, Bernstein raised the stock's price target to $260 from $210, citing abating antitrust concerns and accelerating AI development, according to Investing.com.

What Retail Traders Feel About GOOGL Stock

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward Alphabet stock improved to ‘extremely bullish’ by early Friday, from ‘bullish’ a day ago. The message volume on the stream remained ‘extremely high.’

A bullish user said they expected an ‘explosive’ new high on Friday. The stock currently trades just shy of its all-time intraday high of $257.33 reached this Monday.

All eyes are on the stock next week, as the company is scheduled to report its third-quarter fiscal year 2025 results after the market closes on Wednesday. According to Fiscal.ai-compiled consensus, the company is expected to report earnings per share of $2.29 and revenue of $100.01 billion.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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