Google and Facebook shares could drop another 30% to 40%, Evercore analysts say

• Shares of Google and Facebook could trade 30-40% lower due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Despite both companies being about 25% off from their respective 52-week highs, trends show that the tech giants have ample room to fall before reaching panic levels.
• Shares of Google dropped over 8.5% Monday afternoon in a broader market sell-off, with Facebook down 11.5%.

An employee of the Internet company Facebook walks through the courtyard of the company campus in Menlo Park, California.

Christoph Dernbach | picture alliance | Getty Images

Shares of Google parent-company Alphabet and Facebook could trade 30-40% lower amid a broad market sell-off caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Evercore ISI. 

Evercore analysts Benjamin Black, Lee Horowitz and Kevin Rippey said in a note Saturday that despite both companies being about 25% off from their respective 52-week highs, trends show that the tech giants have ample room to fall before reaching panic levels.

"We've seen a lot worse," the analysts said. 

Evercore's analysts said that while Alphabet currently trades at 18.5 times earnings, it's gone as low as 11.5. During the 2008 financial crisis, the company's trough was 13.5, the analysts said. The note added that if those trough multiples were to hold true today, Alphabet would trade between $715 and $830. The company's stock is currently around $1,100 per share. 

The analysts noted that while Facebook "has never traded lower on an absolute basis, it's facing idiosyncratic concerns on slowing growth." In the past year, Facebook has traded an average 15% discount to Google's second year fiscal forecast of earnings per share, the analysts said. 

If it continues that trend, and Google hits prior troughs, Evercore said it anticipates Facebook to trade at about $120 per share. Shares of Facebook currently trade just over $150. 

Shares of Alphabet are down more than 9.5% on Monday afternoon amid a broad market sell-off, while Facebook is down more than 11.6%.