BMO Boosts Target On Alphabet To $1,000 Ahead Of Thursday's Earnings

In a positive bias ahead of Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL’s earnings report Thursday, BMO raised its target price to $1000 from $960 on upcoming changes to YouTube advertising.

Bullish BMO

Google announced that it will develop a new cloud-based, cross-device measurement solution, and that would deploy used search data to target ads on YouTube.

“We believe this change could provide a material boost to YouTube ROI,” analyst Daniel Salmon wrote in a note.

Salmon said, though it is difficult to quantify the revenue impact of the latest move, he sees this as another major "under the hood" initiative by the CEO. That said, the move may also garner regulatory scrutiny, but Google may be up for it.

“[G]oogle has been laying the groundwork for this type of change for years, having long ago merged privacy policies across products and enabling unified sign-in,” Salmon highlighted.

Salmon also said Google’s new measurement solution is not a threat to Nielson, which counts Google one of its fastest growing clients.

Rating And Top Pick

Salmon reiterated Outperform-rated Alphabet as its Top Pick in the sector.

Earlier this month, Cowen’s John Blackledge raised Alphabet’s price target to $1,050 from $1,000.

At last check, shares of Alphabet rose 1.03 percent to $836.67 after setting a new 52-week high of $839.67.