Alphabet Inc. joined an elite group of companies valued at more than $3 trillion on Monday in the latest sign of improving sentiment for the Google parent.
Shares rose as much as 4.3% to $251.22, resulting in a market capitalization just over $3 trillion. The stock has soared more than 70% off its April low, adding roughly $1.2 trillion in value over that span.
Alphabet joins a short list of other companies valued above $3 trillion, with Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp., and Apple Inc. as the only other publicly traded stocks above that level.
The stock’s most recent leg higher was fueled by a long-awaited antitrust ruling that avoided hitting the search giant with the most punitive measures sought by regulators, including the sale of Alphabet’s Chrome browser. That ruling came in the wake of Alphabet’s second-quarter earnings, which showed that demand for artificial intelligence products is lifting sales.
Earlier Monday, Citigroup Inc. analyst analyst Ron Josey boosted his price target on the the stock to $280 from $225, citing “an accelerated product development cycle that is beginning to emerge with greater Gemini adoption across both its Ads and Cloud businesses.”
Josey added that this comes amid “amid greater clarity around its legal and regulatory challenges in what we believe is a relatively healthy online advertising market.”
Despite competition facing the company’s Search business, “we believe Google is executing better across its halo of products, experiencing greater demand, & delivering improved profitability,” he wrote in a note to clients.
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