Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock Price Down 1.2% Following Analyst Downgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares fell 1.2% during mid-day trading on Thursday after Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on the stock from $210.00 to $185.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as low as $148.50 and last traded at $151.46. 12,846,108 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 54% from the average session volume of 28,198,261 shares. The stock had previously closed at $153.33.

GOOGL has been the subject of several other research reports. Citigroup cut their price target on Alphabet from $229.00 to $195.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. Bank of America reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, December 23rd. UBS Group set a $190.00 target price on Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Westpark Capital upgraded Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have issued a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $200.74.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.90, for a total value of $32,380.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 7,613 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,232,544.70. This trade represents a 2.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total value of $104,537.09. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,303 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,377,014.99. This represents a 4.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 115,663 shares of company stock valued at $20,286,447 over the last quarter. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth approximately $24,383,677,000. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $47,025,322,000 after purchasing an additional 22,100,902 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,483,898,000 after buying an additional 15,968,487 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 17.0% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,178,470,000 after buying an additional 10,135,430 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its stake in Alphabet by 16.2% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,635,878,000 after buying an additional 10,037,685 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.5 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The business has a fifty day moving average of $165.82 and a 200-day moving average of $175.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.84 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th were given a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.53%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.94%.

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.