Google Rising on Heavy Volume After Morgan Stanley Upgrade

Google GOOG has been a notable market mover on Monday. Analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock from Neutral to Overweight with a $775.00 price target, suggesting around 20% upside from current levels. They wrote, "At 13X consensus 2013 EPS, Google trades at a 25% discount to the online advertising sector despite similar earnings growth and fewer execution risks." The analysts added that "Fears may recede, and multiple expand, in coming quarters: Google's core business has delivered impressively stable currency-neutral Y/Y revenue growth averaging 25% in each of the past 9 quarters, yet Google's stock has experienced multiple compression due to fears of social network competition, mobile-related revenue erosion and MMI distraction. We believe shares can re-rate as investors discover that social competition is less than feared, mobile revenue contributions have been mostly incremental, and Google may bring more discipline to MMI than widely assumed." During Monday's trading session, GOOG was last trading up around 2.50% higher and had been moving higher throughout the day on heavy volume. In recent months, the stock has been rising in a channel formation and could be set to test its 52-week high of $670.25 in the coming weeks.