Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.20

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th.

Alphabet has a dividend payout ratio of 7.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.93 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.0%.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL traded up $0.27 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $191.60. 28,450,377 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 27,877,746. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.35 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $190.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $174.52. Alphabet has a 52-week low of $130.66 and a 52-week high of $207.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.02 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total value of $270,787.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 17,848 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. The trade was a 6.98 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 16,820 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.62, for a total transaction of $3,239,868.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 43,981 shares in the company, valued at $8,471,620.22. This trade represents a 27.66 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 89,529 shares of company stock worth $16,600,078. 11.55% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on GOOGL shares. Roth Mkm increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $206.00 to $212.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $229.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $180.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, DZ Bank lowered shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $198.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Thursday. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $210.62.

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.