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

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the forty-two brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, thirty-one have assigned a buy recommendation and four have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $205.90.

GOOGL has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $205.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Roth Mkm raised their target price on Alphabet from $206.00 to $212.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Loop Capital raised their target price on Alphabet from $170.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Pivotal Research raised their target price on Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $176.67, for a total value of $3,975,075.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,061,806 shares in the company, valued at $364,259,266.02. The trade was a 1.08 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.44, for a total transaction of $109,420.08. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 32,017 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,136,807.48. This trade represents a 2.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 206,795 shares of company stock worth $34,673,866 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. New Hampshire Trust lifted its position in Alphabet by 2.7% in the second quarter. New Hampshire Trust now owns 43,714 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,963,000 after acquiring an additional 1,132 shares during the last quarter. Berkshire Money Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the first quarter valued at $359,000. Schneider Downs Wealth Management Advisors LP lifted its position in Alphabet by 58.4% in the first quarter. Schneider Downs Wealth Management Advisors LP now owns 6,374 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $962,000 after acquiring an additional 2,351 shares during the last quarter. Trinity Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in Alphabet by 4.5% in the third quarter. Trinity Financial Advisors LLC now owns 4,423 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $771,000 after acquiring an additional 190 shares during the last quarter. Finally, abrdn plc lifted its position in Alphabet by 10.7% in the third quarter. abrdn plc now owns 6,305,717 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,037,196,000 after acquiring an additional 611,233 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alphabet Price Performance

NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $164.76 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 1.95 and a quick ratio of 1.95. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $167.64 and its 200 day moving average price is $170.36. Alphabet has a 1 year low of $127.90 and a 1 year high of $191.75. The company has a market cap of $2.02 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.85, a PEG ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 1.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.29. The firm had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $72.85 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 31.66% and a net margin of 27.74%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.55 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 7.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 9th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 9th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.49%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 10.61%.

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.