Piper Jaffray Maintains Overweight on Google Ahead of January 19th Earnings Report

Piper Jaffray has published a research report on Google GOOG previewing the company's upcoming earnings report. In the report, Piper Jaffray writes, "The bottom line is that we believe on Jan 19, Google will post in-line to slight upside to Street estimates of $8.38 billion in revenue and $10.46 in PF EPS based on the strength of eCommerce during the quarter. We note the one wild card in the quarter is Europe, which is historically difficult to get a read on. We view shares of GOOG favorably heading into the quarter although we believe the stock could fade post earnings due to continued uncertainty about the Motorola acquisition and the potential impact of troubles in Europe on Google's business. We maintain our Overweight rating and $720 price target as we believe valuation remains attractive vs growth rate and we expect the Motorola issue to be resolved within the next 2-3 months." Piper Jaffray maintains its Overweight rating and $720 price target on Google, which closed yesterday at $625.96.