Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Sets New 1-Year High After Analyst Upgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Thursday after TD Securities raised their price target on the stock from $200.00 to $220.00. The stock traded as high as $191.75 and last traded at $191.18, with a volume of 15931072 shares. The stock had previously closed at $188.98.

GOOGL has been the subject of several other research reports. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $155.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $175.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, April 26th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $195.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, May 15th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $195.06.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.67, for a total value of $113,668.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,284 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,880,764.28. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $157.41, for a total transaction of $3,541,725.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,303,011 shares in the company, valued at $362,516,961.51. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.67, for a total value of $113,668.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,284 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,880,764.28. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 122,988 shares of company stock worth $21,015,755. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 497,874,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $75,144,172,000 after acquiring an additional 4,064,073 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter worth about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 14.4% in the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,316,902,000 after buying an additional 1,472,043 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.7% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 35,412,299 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,344,778,000 after buying an additional 597,756 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Down 0.3 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a current ratio of 2.15 and a quick ratio of 2.15. The company has a market capitalization of $2.29 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.39, a P/E/G ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 1.05. The business has a 50-day moving average of $177.69 and a 200 day moving average of $157.65.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.49 by $0.40. The business had revenue of $80.54 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $66.04 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 29.52% and a net margin of 25.90%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.17 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 17th. Investors of record on Monday, June 10th were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.43%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 12.27%.

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.