Needham & Company LLC Reiterates Buy Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by research analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $178.00 price objective on the information services provider’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price objective points to a potential upside of 17.82% from the company’s previous close.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on GOOGL. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $202.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. Citizens Jmp downgraded shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on Alphabet from $208.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $180.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $200.74.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of GOOGL opened at $151.08 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $165.82 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $175.88. Alphabet has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.84 trillion, a P/E ratio of 18.77, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly 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 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.90, for a total value of $32,380.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,613 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,232,544.70. This trade represents a 2.56 % decrease in their position. 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 stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total transaction of $104,537.09. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,303 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 in the last ninety days. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in 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 acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in 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. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $18,672,198,000 after acquiring an additional 7,574,417 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 16.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,635,878,000 after purchasing an additional 10,037,685 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

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.