Price Target

An analyst's or trader's projected future price for a security, typically set over a 12-month horizon. Wall Street sell-side analysts publish price targets alongside buy, hold, or sell ratings, and upgrades or downgrades can trigger sharp intraday moves. Traders use price targets to set profit-taking levels, though the track record of analyst price targets as a group is decidedly mixed -- studies consistently show they tend to be overly optimistic.