We tracked 3,417 price target moves after earnings. Here's what happened

By Mathew Auto, AnaChart research desk. Updated 23 October 2026. Data through 5 October 2026.

When a company reports, the price targets on it move within hours.

We wanted to know how many move, which way, how far and how fast, so we went through the second quarter 2026 reporting season, mid July to the end of August, and counted every target change on every company where at least four analysts acted on the same day.

That came to 431 companies and 3,417 price target moves. Then we ran the same count on the same weeks of 2025 to see what changed from one year to the next.

Raises outnumbered cuts more than two to one

Of the 3,417 moves, 2,138 were raises (62.6%) and 910 were cuts (26.6%). Another 5.6% kept the target where it was, and 5.2% were first targets from analysts starting coverage.

A year earlier the mix looked different. Raises were 56.7% and cuts 21.9%, and moves with no earlier target from the same analyst made up 20.6%, against 5.2% this year. Those 891 moves in 2025 are spread across many companies.

More of the 2025 records carry no previous target for the analyst, so more of them count as new instead of as a raise or a cut. Keep that in mind when you compare the two years’ shares.

Raises were about the same size in both years: 10.0% at the median in 2026 against 9.1% in 2025. Cuts were larger this year, 11.8% at the median against 8.6%.

Key takeaway: in a reporting season, expect most target moves to be raises, of about 10% at the median.

Four in five moves came on one day

We called the first day in the season with four or more target changes on a company its reaction day. Then we counted every move on that company from the day before to ten days after.

79.2% landed on the reaction day. 5.2% came the next day and 8.3% over days two to five. The last 5.6% trickled in during days six to ten, and 1.8% had come the day before.

Part of that concentration comes from the way the day is defined: a day with four or more moves is busy by construction. Still, the spread after it is thin. Fewer than one move in seven arrived two or more days late, in both years.

Key takeaway: a stock’s target changes mostly arrive on one day. Check the next morning and you’ve seen almost all of them.

Targets moved the way the shares moved

For 384 of the 431 companies we had a share price from before the reaction day and on it. We split them by what the stock did.

On 193 companies the shares closed the reaction day more than 2% higher. 91.0% of the revisions on those companies were raises. On 135 companies the shares closed more than 2% lower, and only 38.3% of revisions there were raises.

2025 looked almost the same on the way up, 91.1% raises. On the way down, raises were 45.6% of revisions, higher than this year’s 38.3%.

We’ve seen the same pattern outside reporting season. Our study on whether price targets follow the stock covers it over a longer stretch. The question of how often those targets are later reached sits in how accurate analyst price targets are.

That fits what researchers have found. Studying how targets and prices move together, Brav and Lehavy (Journal of Finance, 2003) showed that targets track market prices over time, with the one-year target sitting about 28% above the price.

Key takeaway: after a report, the direction of the revisions mostly tells you how the stock reacted, not what it will do next.

Analysts on a stock mostly moved together

414 companies had three or more raises or cuts in the window. On 75.4% of them, every revision went the same direction: all raises or all cuts.

Splitting it further, 65.9% of those companies were mostly raised (three quarters or more of revisions up) and 26.1% mostly cut. That leaves 8.0% where analysts split with no clear majority. The 2025 numbers were close: 74.9% one way, 65.0% mostly raised, 22.9% mostly cut.

This describes timing and direction only. The data can’t tell us why analysts land on the same side, and we don’t claim they react to each other.

Which firms moved on the reaction day

We looked at 35 firms with at least 25 moves from the reaction day onward and asked what share of each firm’s moves came on the reaction day.

Firms with the highest share of moves on the reaction day

At the other end, Citi put 65.2% of its 184 moves on the reaction day and Deutsche Bank 65.4% of 26. Bernstein came in at 70.0% of 50. Argus is the outlier: 14.3% of its 28 moves came that day, and the rest followed over the next ten days.

Publishing later says nothing on its own about whether a target is reached. A firm that waits a few days may be writing a longer note, or may cover the stock from a different desk.

Six companies from the season

The busiest reaction days show both sides of the split.

• Okta drew 36 moves between 20 and 28 August, most of them on 27 August and all of them raises, with a median raise of 17.6%.
• On CrowdStrike, 27 of 37 moves around 27 August were raises and none were cuts. The median raise was 6.4%.
• Netflix went the other way on 17 July. 18 of its 20 moves were cuts, with a median cut of 14.8%.
• Meta Platforms had 19 cuts out of 20 moves around 30 July, median 9.6%.
• On Walmart around 12 August, 15 of 21 moves were cuts and one was a raise.
• Dick’s Sporting Goods saw 15 cuts out of 16 moves around 26 August. The median cut was 35.3%, the deepest of the busiest names.

Each name’s full list of analysts, with every target and how often each analyst’s past targets were reached, is on its AnaChart stock page.

What happened next: a month, two months, a year

A reaction day tells you what analysts did. What the stock did afterwards is a separate story, and it doesn’t always go the analysts’ way.

A month: Okta. Okta closed at $172.91 on 27 August, the day most of its raises came in, up from $134.16 a week earlier.

The new targets ran from $143 (Peter Weed at Bernstein) to $203 (Gabriela Borges at Goldman Sachs, a day later), and most sat between $185 and $200.

The stock caught up within four weeks. It closed at $206.64 on 24 September, above every target set that week.

Two months: Meta. Meta went the other way. On 30 July, with the stock at $539.03, 19 of 20 analysts cut their targets. Mark Mahaney of Evercore went from $930 to $820 and Ken Gawrelski of Wells Fargo from $835 to $640.

Even the lowest new target, Scott Devitt‘s $595 at Wedbush, was above the price. By 24 September the stock had closed at $777.59, past 12 of the 20 targets set that day.

A year: Alphabet and Microsoft in 2025. On 24 July 2025 Alphabet drew 24 raises with the stock at $192.17 and a median new target of $225. In our records it first closed above that on 3 September, and above the highest target, Mark Mahaney’s $240 at Evercore, on 11 September. A year on it was at $317.69.

A week after Alphabet, on 31 July 2025, Microsoft drew 20 raises at $533.50, with a median new target of $640 and a top of $675 from Brent Thill of Jefferies and Alex Zukin of Wolfe.

The highest close we recorded over the next year was $542.07, on 28 October 2025. By 30 July 2026 the stock was at $451.10, with none of those targets reached.

Two busy days of raises a week apart, and a year later one stock was up 65% and the other down 15%.

What a raise or cut tends to mean a year out is the subject of our study of 267,985 target revisions. Prices here are closes on days we hold an analyst record for the stock, so a short-lived high on another day can be missing.

Key takeaway: a wave of raises didn’t decide what came next. Okta caught up with its targets in four weeks. Microsoft never reached its own.

What to do with this

• Wait a day. Almost all of a stock’s target changes after a report land on the reaction day, so the next morning’s list is close to complete.
• Read the direction against the share price. A wave of raises after a big jump mostly confirms the jump.
• Look for the analyst who went the other way. On Walmart, 15 of 21 moves were cuts and one was a raise. The outlier is worth a look on the stock page.
• Check the record before the new number. How an analyst’s past targets on the stock turned out tells you how much weight the new one deserves.

How we counted

Data. AnaChart’s record of analyst price targets and ratings, newest record 5 October 2026. Each record is one analyst action on one stock: the target before, the target after, the rating and the share price that day.

Reaction day. We don’t hold company report dates, so we used a stand-in. For each company, the reaction day is the first day between 14 July and 29 August with four or more price target changes.

We then took every target action on that company from one day before to ten days after. The 2025 comparison uses 14 July to 29 August 2025 with the same rules.

Raise, cut, keep, new. A raise is a new target above the analyst’s previous one on that stock, a cut is below it, and a keep is the same number. A new target has no previous one from that analyst.

Share price move. The close on the reaction day against the last recorded close in the 30 days before the day ahead of it, adjusted for splits.

Companies with no earlier close in that window are left out of the price split, which is why it covers 384 of 431.

Firms. Firms with 25 or more actions from the reaction day onward. The share is the part of those actions dated on the reaction day.

Data through 5 October 2026. Published 23 October 2026. We’ll add the Q3 2026 season once its records are in.

Frequently asked questions

Do analysts raise or lower price targets after earnings?

Both, and raises were more common in the Q2 2026 season: 62.6% of 3,417 moves on 431 companies were raises and 26.6% were cuts. The direction followed the shares.

When a stock closed the reaction day more than 2% higher, 91.0% of revisions were raises. When it closed more than 2% lower, 38.3% were.

How quickly do analysts change price targets after a report?

Mostly the same day. 79.2% of the moves we counted landed on the reaction day, 5.2% the day after and 13.9% over days two to ten. Stifel put 94.6% of its 111 moves on the reaction day, and Citi put 65.2% of its 184.

How big is a typical price target change after earnings?

The median raise was 10.0% and the median cut 11.8% in the Q2 2026 season. Okta’s 36 raises between 20 and 28 August had a median of 17.6%. Dick’s Sporting Goods’ 15 cuts around 26 August had a median of 35.3%.

Do all analysts on a stock move the same way after earnings?

On most stocks they did. Of 414 companies with three or more revisions, 75.4% saw every revision go the same way. Netflix had 18 cuts and no raises among 20 moves around 17 July.