Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Trading Up 1.1% After Analyst Upgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares were up 1.1% during trading on Wednesday after UBS Group raised their price target on the stock from $186.00 to $192.00. UBS Group currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as high as $185.20 and last traded at $185.07. Approximately 5,945,918 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 72% from the average daily volume of 21,437,439 shares. The stock had previously closed at $183.10.

GOOG has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Citizens Jmp raised Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 26th. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Tigress Financial reaffirmed a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, May 2nd. BNP Paribas cut shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. Finally, Barclays restated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $208.40.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In related news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 9,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.00, for a total transaction of $1,575,000.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 255,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $44,695,000. The trade was a 3.40% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 400 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Monday, July 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.98, for a total transaction of $72,792.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 6,013 shares in the company, valued at $1,094,245.74. This trade represents a 6.24% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 183,343 shares of company stock worth $31,296,140. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 580,897.4% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 135,087,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $23,963,208,000 after buying an additional 135,064,454 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at $5,166,070,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Alphabet in the first quarter worth about $2,622,943,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in Alphabet by 18,562.3% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 14,323,323 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,237,733,000 after purchasing an additional 14,246,573 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 2.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $64,299,725,000 after acquiring an additional 9,687,855 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Alphabet Price Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.77, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The company has a market cap of $2.23 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.49, a P/E/G ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 1.01. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $172.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.80.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 30.86% and a return on equity of 34.54%. The company had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.89 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 12.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th were given a $0.21 dividend. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.46%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.36%.

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.