Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Announces $0.20 Quarterly Dividend

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th.

Alphabet has a payout ratio of 7.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.93 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.0%.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOGL opened at $191.60 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.95, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The firm has a market cap of $2.35 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.41, a PEG ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.99. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $190.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $174.52. Alphabet has a 12-month low of $130.66 and a 12-month high of $207.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a return on equity of 31.66% and a net margin of 27.74%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.02 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total transaction of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,848 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. This trade represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.22, for a total transaction of $291,330.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 23,324 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,529,987.28. This trade represents a 6.04 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 89,529 shares of company stock worth $16,600,078. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, December 12th. JMP Securities restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday. Citizens Jmp cut shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $210.62.

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.