How often do analyst price targets get hit? Of 150.2K targets issued between May 2005 and September 2025, 85.9% were reached at some point by 7 September 2026. Two thirds (66.9%) were reached inside twelve months. The others took longer: reached after the first year, they make up 19.1% of every target in the set, which a one-year scoring window never sees.
The set covers 1.1K stocks: 369 US stocks that are in the S&P 500 or Nasdaq-100 today and have not split during the record, 583 Canadian stocks and 184 German ones. Every target is scored on one question, whether the stock traded at the target on the day it was issued or any day after, and on how many days that took. Targets issued in the twelve months before the cutoff are left out, so each one had at least a year to get there.
Share reached, by distance from the price
A target within 5% of the price was reached 98% of the time when it sat above the price and 96.1% when it sat below. Targets 30 to 50% above the price were reached 79% of the time, against 42.2% for targets 30 to 50% below it.
Most targets sit above the price: 129.5K of the 150.2K, or 86%. Those were reached 87.4% of the time, with a median of 120 days among the ones reached. The 20.7K targets below the price were reached 76.5% of the time, and the reached ones took a median of 22 days.
How long reached targets took
A quarter of the reached targets got there within 29 days and half within 105. One in ten took more than 742 days, roughly two years. 22.2% of the reached targets needed more than a year.
Time scales with distance. Among reached targets above the price, the median was 7 days for those within 5%, 133 days for 10 to 20%, and 461.5 days for those more than 50% above.
United States, Canada and Germany side by side
On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Market | Stocks | Targets | Reached | Reached after 12 months | Median days (reached only) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 369 | 124K | 87.4% | 18.6% | 102 |
| Canada | 583 | 19.1K | 80.8% | 23% | 138 |
| Germany | 184 | 7.1K | 73.7% | 16.1% | 98 |
The US group is limited to stocks without a split in the record. Canadian targets cover the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture, Cboe Canada and the CSE. German targets cover XETRA and Frankfurt listings. Targets are in the currency each analyst published them in.
One stock, four years of targets
The share reached within a year moves a great deal from one year of issue to the next, even on a single stock. Meta Platforms shows it.
On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Meta targets issued in | Targets | Median distance | Reached within 12 months | Reached any time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 153 | +19.4% | 97.4% | 99.3% |
| 2021 | 138 | +24.5% | 40.6% | 100% |
| 2022 | 170 | +41.15% | 53.5% | 98.2% |
| 2023 | 212 | +19.75% | 96.7% | 96.7% |
Every one of the 138 targets published on Meta in 2021 was reached, and fewer than half of them inside a year. The 2022 targets sat a median 41.15% above the price on the day, and 98.2% were reached in the end. A twelve month window counts 59.4% of the 2021 targets and 46.5% of the 2022 targets as missed. With no time limit they score as reached, and the days column says how long each took.
The same pattern runs across the whole set by year of issue, and a separate study breaks it down year by year.
What a twelve month score leaves out
A common way to grade analysts takes a Buy rating, measures the stock over the next twelve months, closes the position early if the rating is cut, and calls the result a success rate. It never asks whether the price target was reached. On this data, 19.1% of all targets were reached only after the first year, and a score that stops at twelve months does not see them.
Some ratings feeds start in 2013, cover US stocks only and keep each bank’s own rating words, so an Overweight from one firm and an Outperform from another arrive as different labels. Retail subscriptions are priced by the month for the screens, and bulk data runs through separate enterprise or API contracts with no published price. AnaChart sells the rows: every target on a stock with its issue date, the date it was reached and the days it took.
Method
A target counts as reached when the stock’s intraday high (low, for a target below the price) touched it on the issue day or any later trading day up to 7 September 2026. Direction is set by the target against the close on the issue date, or the prior trading day when the issue date was not a trading day. There is no time limit. Prices for Canadian and German stocks are adjusted for splits. US stocks with any split during the record are excluded from this study. For Canadian and German stocks, targets more than ten times or less than a tenth of the price on the issue date are treated as recording errors and dropped.
Distance is the implied move column in each file: the target against the close on the issue date, in percent. Where one analyst published the same target on the same stock on the same day more than once, it counts once. The US group holds stocks in the S&P 500 or Nasdaq-100 today, which leaves out companies that dropped out of those indexes or delisted.
Data cutoff: prices to 7 September 2026. Published 28 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of analyst price targets are hit?
In this set, 85.9% of 150.2K targets were reached at some point and 66.9% within twelve months. Microsoft is one example: 92.3% of its 1,393 targets were reached, 80.4% within a year.
How long does it take for a price target to be reached?
Half of the reached targets got there within 105 days. Some take years. Meta’s 138 targets from 2021 were all reached, and 40.6% of them within a year.
Are targets below the price reached as often as targets above it?
Less often: 76.5% against 87.4%. On PayPal, 85 of the 86 targets set below the price were reached.
Do Canadian and German targets get reached as often as US ones?
Canadian targets were reached 80.8% of the time and German targets 73.7%, against 87.4% for the US group. Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) had 165 targets, 97.0% reached. SAP (SAP.DE) had 175, 91.4% reached and 65.7% within a year.
More from the same data
Firm by firm: price target hit rate by bank, 27 firms. Year by year: analyst price targets by year issued, 2008 to 2025.
Get the rows behind it
Each stock’s targets are a $29 CSV, one stock per file, no subscription: S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 names plus 607 Canadian and 184 German stocks. The free Apple file shows the layout. Browse the Canadian and German stock pages, or the US pages, to see a stock’s record first.