Day: September 3, 2025

• Google avoided divesting Chrome in an antitrust ruling, boosting its stock 6.7% in after-hours trading.
• Analysts see the ruling as largely favorable for the search giant and raised Google’s stock targets.
• Analysts called the decision “benign” and said it removed a “significant overhang” on the stock.

The verdict on Google’s lengthy lawsuit is out, and analysts say the search giant left the room largely unscathed.

Nearly five years after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Google, a district judge on Tuesday ruled that Google won’t have to divest its Chrome or YouTube businesses.

Instead, District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling said that Google will be barred from entering exclusive contracts with partners such as Apple to give its search engine priority, and it will be forced to share some data with rivals.

Google’s stock jumped 6.7% after hours following the decision.

In post-ruling reactions, analysts called the decision “benign” and said that it finally removed a “significant overhang” on Google’s stock.

“The judge’s decision largely surrounded opening up portions of Google’s search technology to competitors rather than trying to disrupt its distribution framework (ie divesting Chrome) which seemed like the more adverse risk to us,” RBC Capital analysts led by Brad Erickson wrote in a note on Tuesday.

“The path for compounding earnings growth along with multiple expansion hasn’t looked this clear in some time,” the RBC analysts added.

RBC raised its price target for the company from $220 to $260 on Tuesday.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, closed at $212 on Tuesday.

Analysts at Wedbush titled their note, “Government Folds Like Cheap Suit” and wrote: “The outcome is broadly favorable for Google, in our view, with the court ruling against the most severe remedy proposals introduced by the DOJ.”

The Wedbush analysts led by Scott Devitt shared three reasons they are bullish on Google and think its stock is being punished compared to Big Tech peers like Meta.

First, they said that Tuesday’s decision removed “lingering risks” associated with the worst-case outcome for the company. Second, they said that the impact of generative AI rivals such as OpenAI and Perplexity is fading. Lastly, they added that Google’s leadership is “repositioning the business as a winner in the AI space, with strong demand trends and an acceleration in Cloud growth.”

Wedbush raised its stock price target from $225 to $245 on Tuesday.

Google’s stock has risen 11.3% year to date.

• A federal appeals court ruled Trump’s sweeping tariff plan illegal but let it stand through October 14.
• Analysts say the administration can pivot to other legal authorities to keep tariffs in place.
• THEY SAY de-escalation is likely by late 2025 as Trump turns his focus to midterm election politics.

When it comes to tariffs, Washington has no plan B.

That means import charges aren’t going anywhere, even after a federal appeals court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan was illegal.

“Don’t lose sleep on interpreting what it means,” analysts at ING Bank wrote on Tuesday.

“The simple and straightforward way to view this is tariffs remain in place, and will remain in place going forward,” they added.

Even if the case reaches the Supreme Court and it upholds the lower court decision, investors should “continue to assume that the tariffs remain in place,” the ING analysts wrote.

That’s because the Trump administration is “all in on macro management via tariffs,” and can pivot to other laws — from national security provisions to balance-of-payments measures — to keep them alive, the analysts wrote.

Most importantly, they said Congress could step in with a law giving the executive branch more expansive tariff powers.

Grace Fan, a managing director of policy research at GlobalData.TS Lombard, echoed that view.

“Trump will surely double down by tapping other tariff authorities, keeping trade war chaos ongoing in the next few months as tariff winners/losers shift,” she wrote in a note on Saturday.

Still, Fan said she expects a shift by late 2025.

“Our base case remains trade war de-escalation by end-2025, as electoral politics eclipse foreign policy as Trump’s top obsession in the runup to the Nov 2026 midterm elections,” she wrote.

That could create a more positive backdrop for US and global equities, even as doubts linger about America’s reindustrialization drive.

For bond markets, the story is trickier. Lower tariff revenues could widen the fiscal deficit just as investors fret about the Federal Reserve’s independence following Trump’s push to oust Governor Lisa Cook and his clashes with Chair Jerome Powell.

At the same time, any tariff rollback would ease pressure on consumer prices, which is why retailers — and US households — are watching closely.

For now, tariffs remain in place. The appeals court allowed them to stay through October 14 to give the Trump administration time to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.