Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target Raised to $225.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price target hoisted by Citigroup from $203.00 to $225.00 in a research report released on Thursday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have a buy rating on the information services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on GOOGL. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $218.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. UBS Group increased their price target on Alphabet from $186.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. Finally, Susquehanna cut their price objective on Alphabet from $225.00 to $220.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have issued a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $211.32.

Alphabet Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $193.18 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The stock has a market cap of $2.34 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.57, a PEG ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.00. Alphabet has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $207.05. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $175.77 and a 200-day simple moving average of $172.93.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.30 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Investors of record on Monday, September 8th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.43%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 8th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 8.95%.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 18,566 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.76, for a total value of $3,448,820.16. Following the transaction, the director owned 243,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $45,213,984. The trade was a 7.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $178.52, for a total transaction of $5,801,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,559,892 shares in the company, valued at $456,991,919.84. This trade represents a 1.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 249,409 shares of company stock worth $43,523,710. 11.64% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth approximately $24,383,677,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth $4,317,606,000. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $47,025,322,000 after acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,483,898,000 after acquiring an additional 15,968,487 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

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.