Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Alphabet Call Options (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Stock traders bought 631,804 call options on the company. This is an increase of 73% compared to the typical daily volume of 365,513 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total transaction of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.16, for a total transaction of $5,075,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,685,196 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $419,320,207.36. This represents a 1.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 148,163 shares of company stock valued at $25,361,647. 11.55% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $47,025,322,000 after buying an additional 22,100,902 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Alphabet by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $18,672,198,000 after purchasing an additional 7,574,417 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in Alphabet by 16.2% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,635,878,000 after purchasing an additional 10,037,685 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in Alphabet by 17.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,178,470,000 after purchasing an additional 10,135,430 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their price target on Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. UBS Group boosted their target price on Alphabet from $173.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Rosenblatt Securities reduced their price target on shares of Alphabet from $205.00 to $189.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Wedbush set a $190.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $167.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $198.63.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.7 %

GOOGL opened at $161.96 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $162.18 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $175.52. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $207.05. The company has a market cap of $1.97 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 EPS. Analysts predict that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.52%. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.94%.

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.