Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target Raised to $196.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price target boosted by Cantor Fitzgerald from $171.00 to $196.00 in a report published on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the information services provider’s stock.

Several other brokerages also recently weighed in on GOOGL. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $189.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. UBS Group set a $195.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, April 25th. DA Davidson dropped their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $160.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on Alphabet from $235.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 31st. Finally, Citizens Jmp upgraded Alphabet from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $220.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Friday, June 27th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $201.68.

Alphabet Stock Up 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $185.06 on Wednesday. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $207.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.77 and a quick ratio of 1.77. The stock has a market cap of $2.25 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.63, a P/E/G ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 1.00. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $172.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $173.12.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 return on equity of 34.54% and a net margin of 30.86%. The firm had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.89 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th were given a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 9th. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.45%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 9.36%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $184.38, for a total transaction of $5,992,350.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,527,392 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $466,000,536.96. The trade was a 1.27% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.00, for a total value of $105,000.00. Following the sale, the director owned 6,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,192,275. The trade was a 8.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 215,843 shares of company stock valued at $37,288,490 in the last 90 days. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Alphabet by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 22,100,902 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $18,672,198,000 after buying an additional 7,574,417 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 16.2% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,635,878,000 after buying an additional 10,037,685 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.