Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Announces Dividend Increase - $0.21 Per Share

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, April 28th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a dividend of 0.21 per share by the information services provider on Monday, June 16th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 9th. This is a 5.0% increase from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20.

Alphabet has a dividend payout ratio of 8.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Alphabet to earn $10.23 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 8.2%.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of GOOG stock traded up $1.90 on Thursday, reaching $162.79. 21,825,033 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 19,189,810. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $162.48 and its 200 day simple moving average is $177.09. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $208.70. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.22, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. The business had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The business's revenue was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $200.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 21st. UBS Group lowered their price target on Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 11th. Morgan Stanley restated an "overweight" rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Westpark Capital reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Citigroup restated a "sell" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $203.94.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.53, for a total value of $33,106.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 7,813 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,293,285.89. This trade represents a 2.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 1,340 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total value of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 17,848 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 148,164 shares of company stock worth $25,357,390. Insiders own 12.99% of the company's stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Alphabet stock. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Free Report) by 5.6% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 120,253 shares of the information services provider's stock after buying an additional 6,410 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises 0.7% of Brighton Jones LLC's investment portfolio, making the stock its 22nd biggest position. Brighton Jones LLC's holdings in Alphabet were worth $22,901,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Institutional investors own 27.26% 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.