Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock Price Up 1.1%

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) traded up 1.1% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $161.01 and last traded at $159.62. 5,151,586 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 74% from the average session volume of 20,089,756 shares. The stock had previously closed at $157.81.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $205.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Rosenblatt Securities cut shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Friday, June 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. TD Cowen boosted their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $182.86.

Alphabet Trading Down 4.1 %

The stock has a 50-day moving average of $172.50 and a 200 day moving average of $165.62. The company has a quick ratio of 2.08, a current ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The stock has a market cap of $1.88 trillion, a PE ratio of 23.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $84.22 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 26.70% and a return on equity of 30.49%. The business’s revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.44 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 12.27%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, insider John Kent Walker sold 21,467 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.35, for a total value of $3,442,233.45. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 39,334 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,307,206.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.68, for a total transaction of $3,570,300.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,137,385 shares in the company, valued at approximately $339,160,251.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 21,467 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.35, for a total value of $3,442,233.45. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 39,334 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,307,206.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 200,532 shares of company stock valued at $34,055,874 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in Alphabet by 9.3% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 87,716,562 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,355,724,000 after purchasing an additional 7,470,042 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 19.7% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 84,171,721 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,815,986,000 after purchasing an additional 13,876,534 shares during the period. Capital World Investors grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.2% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 45,731,826 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,963,128,000 after purchasing an additional 979,083 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in Alphabet by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 35,558,778 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,414,179,000 after buying an additional 684,968 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $4,101,040,000. 27.26% of the stock is 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.