Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has been given an average rating of “Moderate Buy” by the forty ratings firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, twenty-six have given a buy recommendation and four have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $199.75.

A number of analysts recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Susquehanna lowered their target price on Alphabet from $225.00 to $220.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Rosenblatt Securities dropped their price objective on Alphabet from $205.00 to $189.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $159.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. DA Davidson lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $160.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 14th. Finally, DZ Bank cut shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $198.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Thursday, February 6th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total transaction of $5,153,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. The trade was a 1.18 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,824 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $187.43, for a total value of $529,302.32. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,024 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,815,948.32. This represents a 15.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 179,324 shares of company stock valued at $30,153,353 over the last quarter. 11.64% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $24,383,677,000. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the fourth 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 period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,483,898,000 after buying an additional 15,968,487 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position 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 worth $78,839,544,000 after buying an additional 14,307,345 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in Alphabet by 17.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,178,470,000 after acquiring an additional 10,135,430 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.0 %

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $152.75 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.85 trillion, a P/E ratio of 18.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $158.93 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $175.10. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.55%. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.