Insider Selling: Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Director Sells 400 Shares of Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) Director John L. Hennessy sold 400 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.98, for a total transaction of $72,792.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 6,013 shares in the company, valued at $1,094,245.74. This represents a 6.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOG traded up $0.93 during trading on Thursday, hitting $184.70. 21,591,948 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 21,529,156. The company has a quick ratio of 1.77, a current ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The company has a market cap of $2.24 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.59, a P/E/G ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $172.81 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $174.80. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $142.66 and a 52-week high of $208.70.

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

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th were paid a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.45%. This is a boost from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 9.36%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOG. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $64,299,725,000 after purchasing an additional 9,687,855 shares during the last quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake 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 purchasing an additional 135,064,454 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $22,470,344,000 after purchasing an additional 3,189,592 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $19,894,651,000 after purchasing an additional 1,219,606 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 9.9% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $15,971,861,000 after purchasing an additional 9,243,959 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on GOOG shares. Piper Sandler restated a "neutral" rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Needham & Company LLC cut shares of Alphabet from a "buy" rating to a "cautious" rating in a report on Friday, May 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $220.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Citizens Jmp raised shares of Alphabet from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, June 26th. Finally, Scotiabank decreased 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. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $208.40.

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.