Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fifty-one research firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, forty-one have issued a buy recommendation and four have given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $307.8431.

GOOGL has been the subject of several research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Alphabet from $288.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Arete raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.06, for a total transaction of $168,036.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 4,516 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,264,750.96. This represents a 11.73% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $296.64, for a total value of $9,640,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,304,619 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $683,642,180.16. This trade represents a 1.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 225,174 shares of company stock worth $58,095,223. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 516,559,609 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $91,033,300,000 after acquiring an additional 6,733,278 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in Alphabet by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Alphabet by 3.1% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 141,615,284 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $24,857,017,000 after purchasing an additional 4,224,497 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet in the second quarter valued at about $21,944,208,000. Finally, Capital World Investors raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 28.0% in the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 53,107,572 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $12,910,542,000 after purchasing an additional 11,605,785 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $323.44 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $265.17 and its 200-day moving average price is $216.20. The firm has a market cap of $3.90 trillion, a P/E ratio of 31.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.05. Alphabet has a 12 month low of $140.53 and a 12 month high of $328.83.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The company had revenue of $102.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 36.08%. On average, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 8th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.28%.

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.