Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report)'s share price rose 2.5% on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $172.82 and last traded at $171.90. Approximately 9,124,810 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 56% from the average daily volume of 20,636,072 shares. The stock had previously closed at $167.74.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Tigress Financial reaffirmed a "strong-buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, May 2nd. KeyCorp cut their price target on Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Alphabet from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Scotiabank dropped their target price on Alphabet from $232.00 to $200.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 21st. Finally, Susquehanna reissued a "positive" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and six have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $204.88.
Read Our Latest Report on Alphabet
Alphabet Price Performance
The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $167.82 and a 200-day simple moving average of $176.17. The stock has a market cap of $2.16 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.87, a PEG ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a quick ratio of 1.77, a current ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.54% and a net margin of 30.86%. Alphabet's revenue for the quarter was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Alphabet Increases Dividend
The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th were given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.47%. This is a boost from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 9th. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is presently 9.36%.
Insider Transactions at Alphabet
In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total transaction of $5,153,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,717,696 shares in the company, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 673 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total value of $104,537.09. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,303 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,377,014.99. This trade represents a 4.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 216,195 shares of company stock worth $35,764,898. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Institutional Trading of Alphabet
A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC now owns 31,967 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $6,088,000 after buying an additional 380 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 5.6% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 120,253 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $22,901,000 after buying an additional 6,410 shares during the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 506,535 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $96,465,000 after buying an additional 20,855 shares during the last quarter. Rowlandmiller & PARTNERS.ADV lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Rowlandmiller & PARTNERS.ADV now owns 82,604 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $15,731,000 after buying an additional 638 shares during the last quarter. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 76.6% in the fourth quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 60,367 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $11,497,000 after purchasing an additional 26,183 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
About Alphabet
(
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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.
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