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Last week, Yahoo experienced a small win on the financial front as an analyst gave its stock a "buy" rating and increased his price target from $19 to $20.  Today, Google achieved a rather bigger victory as another analyst raised his price target from $600 to $695.

Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali had no shortage of reasons for reiterating a "buy" rating on Google and altering the price target.  "Signs of improvement in CPCs" and "optimism among advertisers for FY10 amid an improving macro picture" were two points he put forward, according to a Benzinga article.

Another factor is simply Google’s impressive and often-increasing control of the search market; Squali cited comScore’s October figure of 65.4 percent.

So now Google’s stock is up by a fair amount — 0.85 percent, compared to the Dow’s 0.22 percent and the Nasdaq’s 0.78 percent.  Google established a new 52-week high earlier today, too, hitting a level not seen since January of 2008.

Yahoo is also up, if you’re curious, by a less-impressive-but-still-good 0.32 percent.  And Microsoft’s stock has risen 0.80 percent so far today, landing the company somewhere in between its rivals.

Related Articles:

> Kaufman Bros. Analyst Upgrades Yahoo

> Respected Fund Manager Backs Away From Google

> Google, Bing Perform Well In Latest comScore Report

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