GOOG: More Price Target Hikes Despite Bad News Flow

Google (GOOG) gained more plaudits today, even as the news flow turns somewhat dark for the company.

Oppenheimer & Co.‘s Jason Helfstein this morning reiterates an Outperform rating in advance of the company’s Q3 report Thursday afternoon, and raises his price target to $800 from a prior $752, principally to bring the shares into alignment with the overall rise in S&P 500 valuation.

Helfstein now offers a 14 times multiple of 2015 non-GAAP EPS of 69.60, versus his prior 13 times multiple, “on increase in S&P valaution,” he writes.

At the same time, he sees overall� trends having improved for Google in the quarter, with a bunch of third-party market surveyors saying that Google’s “cost per click” ad rate for search is “trending up year over year,” which he thinks is “a directional indicator only,” not necessarily precise. The same data suggests “total spend accelerating,” he writes.

And Piper Jaffray‘s Gene Munster reiterates an Overweight rating on the stock while raising his price target to $834 from $717, writing that Thursday’s report will be “a relatively positive Q3 once investors sort through the report.” By that, he means that the “core” Google business is likely to have increased more than the 6% that investors expect, but that the Motorola Mobility unit Google acquired this year “is likely to be weaker than current Street estimates assume.”

The risk, writes Munster, is that “Motorola was previously a larger concern� for investors and a disappointing quarter may bring the concern back to the forefront.”

As Motorola continues its turnaround, we believe the company may see weakness in the unit’s performance in Q3 as it comps against the launch of the Samsung Galaxy SIII and iPhone 5. We were modeling for a 6% y/y decline in Motorola’s total business; however, we believe that Motorola’s business may be weaker than previously expected and, as a result, are reducing our estimates both for Q3 and moving forward.

Still, Munster is focused on the core, noting that the past three Q3s have shown growth of 7.9%, on average, above that 6% view. Munster is modeling total revenue in the quarter of $11.93 billion, and EPS of $10.73, which is above the consensus $11.46 billion and $10.63.

The news flow, meantime, is not good for Google today. The Wall Street Journal‘s Amir Efrati yesterday wrote that the main question hanging over the stock is what European and U.S. regulators may demand of Google to resolve concerns about the company’s dominance of Internet search.

Some of the company’s representatives in Washington, D.C., are increasingly worried U.S. antitrust authorities won’t settle for minor “remedies” to charges by Google’s competitors that it unfairly steers search-engine visitors to Google’s own specialized services, said people with direct knowledge of the matter. They are concerned authorities will try to impose onerous conditions that could affect Google’s ability to fully control its own Web-search results, these people said.

Google shares today are down $10.28, or 1.4%, at $734.47.