Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target Raised to $215.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its target price hoisted by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $205.00 to $215.00 in a note issued to investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “overweight” rating on the information services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 13.67% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on GOOGL. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $187.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their target price on Alphabet from $180.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Pivotal Research raised their price target on Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. KeyCorp upped their price objective on Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Scotiabank upgraded Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty have given a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $208.15.

Alphabet Stock Down 1.5 %

GOOGL traded down $2.89 during trading on Monday, hitting $189.15. The company had a trading volume of 8,477,002 shares, compared to its average volume of 22,064,137. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $130.66 and a 1-year high of $201.42. 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 company has a market cap of $2.32 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.09, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.98. The business has a 50-day moving average of $182.62 and a 200-day moving average of $172.95.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $72.85 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.55 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.01 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,368 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $191.55, for a total value of $262,040.40. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 20,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,961,445.55. This represents a 6.20 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 16,820 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.62, for a total value of $3,239,868.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 43,981 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,471,620.22. This represents a 27.66 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 154,387 shares of company stock valued at $27,748,931 over the last three months. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp boosted its position in Alphabet by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 222,555,548 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $36,910,838,000 after buying an additional 743,369 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 134,030,679 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,154,651,000 after purchasing an additional 2,626,431 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 63,667,407 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $10,559,240,000 after purchasing an additional 4,567,275 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 2.5% during the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 49,857,900 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,268,933,000 after purchasing an additional 1,237,385 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Alphabet by 1.4% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 37,233,079 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,175,106,000 after purchasing an additional 523,416 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.