Citizens Cuts Alphabet Rating to Market Perform, Sets No Price Target

Citizens lowered its rating on Alphabet to Market Perform from Outperform after a third-quarter report was released. Alphabet’s query growth had reached a five-year high, but the search business still faced monetization challenges.

The firm did not set a price target. Citizens also pointed to difficult year-over-year comparisons for search, adding another challenge alongside the gap between rising query activity and revenue generation.

Citizens said moving search monetization from AI Overviews toward agent tools would require strong execution. The firm said Google faced significant execution risk as competition among agent tools increased and the company changed how search is monetized.