Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in a research note released on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $210.00 price objective on the information services provider’s stock.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Tigress Financial raised their target price on Alphabet from $176.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a report on Friday, May 24th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a market outperform rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Alphabet from $215.00 to $220.00 in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, TD Securities lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 10th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $203.74.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.0 %

NASDAQ GOOGL traded up $1.64 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $163.67. 28,602,285 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 28,282,494. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $120.21 and a fifty-two week high of $191.75. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.02 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $177.03 and its 200-day simple moving average is $161.88.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The company had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $70.60 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.44 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet will post 7.62 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 16th. Investors of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.49%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 12.27%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.86, for a total value of $118,572.52. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,966 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,209,888.76. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.35, for a total transaction of $3,652,875.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,182,385 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $354,310,204.75. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.86, for a total value of $118,572.52. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 29,966 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,209,888.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 122,308 shares of company stock valued at $21,385,000 over the last 90 days. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 497,874,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $75,144,172,000 after buying an additional 4,064,073 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 14.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 49,472,478 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,011,412,000 after buying an additional 238,403 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,316,902,000 after buying an additional 1,472,043 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is 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.