Analysts Set Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Price Target at $203.94

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-seven analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $203.94.

GOOG has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC cut Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “cautious” rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Westpark Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Oppenheimer raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, KeyCorp lowered their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th.

Alphabet Price Performance

NASDAQ GOOG opened at $167.43 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $160.19 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $176.77. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $208.70. The stock has a market cap of $2.03 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. The business had revenue of $90.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 EPS. Analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.36%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Ruth Porat sold 17,690 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.48, for a total value of $3,245,761.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 1,449,286 shares in the company, valued at $265,914,995.28. This represents a 1.21% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 179,324 shares of company stock worth $30,153,353 over the last 90 days. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOG. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Alphabet by 2.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $64,299,725,000 after purchasing an additional 9,687,855 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,470,344,000 after buying an additional 3,189,592 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,894,651,000 after buying an additional 1,219,606 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in Alphabet by 9.9% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,971,861,000 after buying an additional 9,243,959 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its position in Alphabet by 6.7% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 91,236,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $17,376,706,000 after acquiring an additional 5,758,244 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% 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.