Alphabet Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be paid 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 dividend yield of 0.41%. 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. Research 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 Up 0.0 %

Alphabet stock opened at $193.31 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.37 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.64, a PEG ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 1.00. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $192.33 and its 200 day simple moving average is $176.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 1.95 and a quick ratio of 1.95. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $131.55 and a fifty-two week high of $208.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 8.02 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Scotiabank increased their target price on Alphabet from $212.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $212.00 to $216.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Citizens Jmp cut Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $209.13.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the firm’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 transaction of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 17,848 shares in the company, valued at $3,606,723.84. This trade represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 37,134 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.02, for a total value of $6,870,532.68. Following the sale, the director now owns 282,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $52,329,576.64. This represents a 11.61 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 89,529 shares of company stock valued at $16,600,078. 12.99% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.