CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:
We lift our 12-month target price to $175 from $166, on near long-term historical P/E of 22.2x our 2025 EPS estimate, which we raise to $7.88 from $7.54. We up our 2024 EPS to $6.88 from $6.77. Ahead of Q1 results set to be released on 4/25, we see upside to EPS/revenue as we expect strong results from both GOOGL’s Search (+11%) and YouTube (+10%) businesses. We think cloud revenue will grow 26% and see a mid-to-high 20s level being sustained for all of 2024 as we see incremental opportunities tied to AI monetization. We expect GOOGL to unveil a new buyback of at least $70B (same level as the last two years) and see the potential for a dividend initiation following one by Meta Platforms earlier this year. On the AI side, we like opportunities attached to cloud offerings, new enterprise AI tools, and AI integration on the Search/YouTube side. We also see greater focus on efficiencies, with improving profitability across the cloud and smaller losses from Other Bets. We see FCF of +$75B in 2024 and +$85B in 2025.