Alphabet Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Friday. Investors acquired 392,187 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 23% compared to the typical volume of 317,596 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, Director Frances Arnold sold 230 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.06, for a total transaction of $35,433.80. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 15,104 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,326,922.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, Director Frances Arnold sold 230 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.06, for a total value of $35,433.80. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 15,104 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,326,922.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total value of $94,769.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 27,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,009,032.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 253,439 shares of company stock valued at $36,746,578. 0.88% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Phoenix Wealth Advisors increased its position in Alphabet by 4.5% during the 1st quarter. Phoenix Wealth Advisors now owns 2,785 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $420,000 after buying an additional 120 shares during the period. Fonville Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 6.7% during the 1st quarter. Fonville Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,598 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $241,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Finer Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.0% during the 1st quarter. Finer Wealth Management Inc. now owns 36,365 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,489,000 after purchasing an additional 1,396 shares in the last quarter. Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 132,521 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $21,125,000 after purchasing an additional 6,082 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 13.9% during the 1st quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP now owns 2,110 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $318,000 after purchasing an additional 258 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Alphabet from $185.00 to $205.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $165.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $174.00 to $196.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $150.00 to $166.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Finally, Raymond James boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $160.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $187.82.

Alphabet Stock Up 10.2 %

GOOGL opened at $171.95 on Friday. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $103.54 and a 1-year high of $174.71. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $147.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $141.39. The company has a current ratio of 2.10, a quick ratio of 2.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. The stock has a market cap of $2.14 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The information services provider reported $1.64 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $86.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $70.77 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 27.22% and a net margin of 24.01%. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.05 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Alphabet will post 6.78 earnings per share for the current year.

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.