Prediction: Wall Street May Be Sleeping on Google’s Next Big Move

55 minutes ago 3

Vandita Jadeja

Mon, May 18, 2026 astatine 7:09 AM CDT 4 min read

Quick Read

  • Google (GOOG) posted a 94.1% EPS bushed successful Q1 with $109.9B gross up 22% YoY, portion Google Cloud gross surged 63% to $20B with backlog astir doubling to $462B and Cloud operating margins expanding from 17.8% to 32.9%.

  • Search queries deed all-time highs with AI Overviews monetizing amended than expected, and Waymo crossed 500,000 autonomous rides per week.

  • Google’s $462B Cloud backlog with compute constraints positions the institution to person astir fractional to gross wrong 24 months, portion AI monetization crossed Search and infrastructure CapEx of $180B-$190B successful 2026 stay the cardinal levers Wall Street has underpriced.

  • The expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 stocks and Google wasn't 1 of them. Get them present FREE.

Few mega-caps person shifted the communicative arsenic decisively arsenic Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has implicit the past year. After a 138.92% one-year tally and a 26.65% year-to-date gain, the existent question is whether the marketplace has afloat priced what comes next. Our exemplary says it has not.

Our 24/7 Wall St. Price Target for Google

Google trades astatine $397.17. Our 24/7 Wall St. terms people for Google is $473.24, implying 19.15% upside implicit the adjacent 12 months. The proposal is buy, with a 90% assurance level, supported by accelerating unreality growth, AI monetization crossed Search, and a still-reasonable guardant multiple.

The expert who called NVIDIA successful 2010 conscionable named his apical 10 stocks and Google wasn't 1 of them. Get them present FREE.

Metric

Value

Current Price

$397.17

24/7 Wall St. Price Target

$473.24

Upside

19.15%

Recommendation

BUY

Confidence Level

90%

What Just Happened: A Blowout Q1 and a Cloud Backlog Explosion

Google posted a 94.1% EPS bushed successful Q1 FY2026, with gross of $109.9 billion, up 21.79% year-over-year. Google Cloud gross jumped 63% to $20.028 billion, with backlog astir doubling sequentially to $462 billion. Shares moved +9.97% connected the net report, past kept climbing. The banal present sits wrong 5% of its $399.93 52-week high, with the 200-day moving mean astatine $289.27.

Reddit's r/stocks thread "GOOG ain't done yet" captured the retail tone, portion Egerton Capital added 2.38 cardinal shares and ARK Invest added 174,522 shares this month.

The Case for $549 and Beyond

Our bull lawsuit targets $549.06, a 38.24% return. The thesis rests connected 3 legs. First, Cloud operating income tripled YoY with margins expanding from 17.8% to 32.9%, and Pichai noted GenAI merchandise gross grew astir 800% year-over-year.

Second, Search queries deed an all-time high, with AI Overviews monetizing amended than the bears expected and ads relevance improving by astir 10%.

Read Entire Article