Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Shares Climb 1.6% - Time to Buy?

Key Points

• Alphabet shares rose 1.6% to $295.35 in Thursday’s mid-day trading, with volume about 4% above its daily average.
• Analysts hold a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and an average price target of $413.38; six rate the stock Strong Buy and 35 rate it Buy.
• Alphabet’s latest quarter showed revenue up 24.7% year over year, but earnings per share of $2.12 missed the $3.01 consensus. Investors are also weighing AI infrastructure costs and legal uncertainty around the company’s AI activities.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report)'s stock price traded up 1.6% during mid-day trading on Thursday. The company traded as high as $299.25 and last traded at $295.35. 21,686,093 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 4% from the average daily volume of 20,872,775 shares. The stock had previously closed at $290.63.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are a few of the latest headlines about GOOG:

• Neutral Sentiment: Warren Buffett’s successor Greg Abel has continued Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in Alphabet, with Berkshire reportedly buying more than 60 million shares since he became CEO. This is a vote of confidence, but does not guarantee near-term buying or business performance. Warren Buffett’s successor has nearly $110 billion invested in two tech stocks
• Negative Sentiment: Investors are weighing the substantial cost of AI infrastructure against its future returns. Coverage flags cash flow and spending as challenges even as Alphabet expands its cloud and TPU offerings. Alphabet: Story Behind The Inevitable Cost Of Future Growth
• Negative Sentiment: Alphabet is among the companies facing a lawsuit seeking to halt frontier AI development, creating potential legal and regulatory uncertainty. Separately, shareholder firms are publicizing a securities class action alleging investors were misled about Gemini 3.5 Pro’s launch and training results; these are allegations, not established findings. OpenAI, Google, Anthropic hit with lawsuit seeking halt to frontier AI development Alphabet shareholder alert regarding securities lawsuit

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on GOOG. Stifel Nicolaus set a $485.00 price objective on Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, October 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their target price on Alphabet from $440.00 to $435.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Alphabet from $425.00 to $375.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 29th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Alphabet from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Evercore reissued an "outperform" rating and set a $435.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, October 29th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $413.38.

Alphabet Stock Performance

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $326.81 and a 200-day moving average price of $336.38. The company has a quick ratio of 2.69, a current ratio of 2.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.63 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.41, a P/E/G ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.21.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $3.01 by ($0.89). Alphabet had a return on equity of 43.33% and a net margin of 50.03%. The business had revenue of $127.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $127.97 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.87 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 24.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 19.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 7th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 7th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 4.59%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, Director Frances Arnold sold 83 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.45, for a total value of $28,257.35. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 19,076 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $6,494,424.20. This trade represents a 0.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders sold a total of 247 shares of company stock valued at $79,238 over the last three months. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Readystate Asset Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the second quarter valued at $45,352,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its stake in Alphabet by 76.1% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 14,581,870 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $4,182,952,000 after acquiring an additional 6,300,900 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in Alphabet by 2.8% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 190,923,442 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $67,458,980,000 after acquiring an additional 5,208,690 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its stake in Alphabet by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 369,922,502 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $130,704,718,000 after acquiring an additional 5,164,200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amundi lifted its position in Alphabet by 22.9% during the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 21,922,379 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $6,288,654,000 after acquiring an additional 4,083,758 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Alphabet

Alphabet is a technology holding company whose primary business is Google. Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google became part of Alphabet when the company adopted a holding-company structure in 2015. Sundar Pichai leads Alphabet and Google as chief executive officer. Google offers internet search, online advertising, cloud computing, and software and hardware products. Its services and products include Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Play, and Google Cloud.

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