Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Trading Up 1.5% on Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) were up 1.5% during mid-day trading on Tuesday after Citigroup raised their price target on the stock from $200.00 to $203.00. Citigroup currently has a buy rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as high as $167.54 and last traded at $167.61. Approximately 12,378,826 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 60% from the average daily volume of 30,627,970 shares. The stock had previously closed at $165.19.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on GOOGL. Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $159.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 16th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $225.00 to $192.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $200.17.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total value of $104,537.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,303 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,377,014.99. This represents a 4.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.90, for a total transaction of $32,380.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 7,613 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,232,544.70. This trade represents a 2.56% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 216,306 shares of company stock valued at $35,782,927 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in Alphabet by 9.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $47,025,322,000 after acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at about $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in Alphabet by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $18,672,198,000 after acquiring an additional 7,574,417 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in Alphabet by 16.2% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,635,878,000 after acquiring an additional 10,037,685 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $2.07 trillion, a PE ratio of 19.03, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a current ratio of 1.77. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $165.45 and its 200-day moving average is $174.58.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 30.86% and a return on equity of 34.54%. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.89 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th were issued a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.49%. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 9.36%.

About Alphabet

Alphabet Inc offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.