At the end of August, we reported that Alphabet (GOOGL) stock price had reached a historic high, closing above $210. But today, the price is likely to climb to a new, significantly higher level. Yesterday, in after-hours trading, it surged by roughly 8%.

Why did Alphabet (GOOGL) shares rise?

The jump is explained by a court ruling in a case concerning alleged monopoly practices related to the Chrome browser. According to Investopedia, a federal judge ruled that the tech giant does not need to sell Chrome. This dispelled fears that Alphabet might have been forced to part with a core part of its business.

Interestingly, one of the factors behind the judge’s decision was the spread of AI solutions (such as ChatGPT and Perplexity), which offer competition to Chrome’s search and browsing functions.

Technical analysis of GOOGL shares

In our earlier review, we identified:
→ an upward channel (shown in blue), formed by long-term price movements;
→ an intermediate channel (in place since late spring).

If today’s trading in GOOGL opens around where the price settled in yesterday’s after-hours session (close to $226), this would mean:
→ the growth target at the upper boundary of the blue channel has been reached;
→ in the context of the summer’s price swings, Alphabet (GOOGL) shares will be in an extremely overbought zone.

Once the initial excitement following the news subsides, this could pave the way for a correction, which seems reasonable after a rise of more than 55% in the past five months.

In this case, the $215 level may serve as an indicative target for the correction to end:
→ it marks the lower boundary of a bullish gap that is highly likely to form today;
→ the market could then return within the aforementioned channels, giving the bulls renewed confidence to buy, as Alphabet (GOOGL) would no longer appear overbought, while the strong fundamental backdrop (as can reasonably be expected) would remain intact.

Buy and sell stocks of the world's biggest publicly-listed companies with CFDs on FXOpen’s trading platform. Open your FXOpen account now or learn more about trading share CFDs with FXOpen.

This article represents the opinion of the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand only. It is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation with respect to products and services provided by the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand, nor is it to be considered financial advice.