Bernstein Raises Alphabet Price Target to $345

Bernstein SocGen Group analyst Mark Shmulik raised the price target on Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to $345.00 (from $335.00) while maintaining a Market Perform rating.

“In an unforgiving tape, Google took a page out of Meta’s January playbook by blowing top line numbers out and following it up with the chance to take up AI investment levels materially – in case you haven’t heard the AI opportunity is generational.

A week ago this print would have been bought up, but it’s February, and it seems no revenue beat is enough in an investment cycle that is just as likely to be a race to the bottom as it is TAM expansionary while wiping out FCF in the process.

Welcome to Google’s Investment Cycle Era.

If investors’ chief complaint earlier in the AI LLM/search wars was that Google wasn’t spending enough to keep up, they suddenly find themselves reversing course and wondering if Google is now spending too much with a 2026 CapEx guide of $175-185B nearly 2xing investment levels Y/Y over year.

And if there was any lingering doubt that management was being conservative, it certainly sounds like their biggest worry these days is how quickly they can spin up more capacity.

With EPS/FCF firmly range-bound in an escalating investment cycle, the hope is that the ROIC holds up in 2027+ where questions around revenue growth durability emerge.”

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