Brokerages Set Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Target Price at $195.06

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-four ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $200.44.

GOOGL has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Susquehanna upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $170.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Monday, April 29th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $150.00 to $166.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Raymond James upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $160.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, April 26th. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price target (down previously from $182.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, June 28th.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOGL opened at $177.66 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 2.15 and a current ratio of 2.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.20 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.25, a P/E/G ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.05. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $178.88 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $159.23. Alphabet has a 52-week low of $118.22 and a 52-week high of $191.75.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.40. The business had revenue of $80.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $66.04 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 25.90% and a return on equity of 29.52%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.17 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Alphabet will post 7.61 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 10th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 10th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.45%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 12.27%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.85, for a total transaction of $278,775.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 30,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,728,640.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $182.84, for a total value of $4,113,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,204,885 shares in the company, valued at $403,141,173.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.85, for a total value of $278,775.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 30,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,728,640.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 124,488 shares of company stock worth $21,866,705. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. Public Sector Pension Investment Board increased its stake in Alphabet by 31.8% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 2,710,105 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $354,644,000 after purchasing an additional 654,278 shares during the period. EP Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Alphabet by 16,618.9% in the third quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 835,947 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $109,392,000 after purchasing an additional 830,947 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 7.8% during the third quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 25,064,614 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $3,279,955,000 after buying an additional 1,809,910 shares during the period. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% during the third quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 211,743 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $27,709,000 after buying an additional 1,153 shares during the period. Finally, StrongBox Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. StrongBox Wealth LLC now owns 34,051 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $4,757,000 after buying an additional 610 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.