Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Trading Up 2.5% Following Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGLGet Free Report) rose 2.5% during mid-day trading on Wednesday after Tigress Financial raised their price target on the stock from $220.00 to $240.00. Tigress Financial currently has a strong-buy rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as high as $171.78 and last traded at $170.89. Approximately 14,017,412 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 30,721,054 shares. The stock had previously closed at $166.77.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $178.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Rosenblatt Securities decreased their target price on Alphabet from $205.00 to $189.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $195.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have issued a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $200.17.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Alphabet

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total transaction of $104,537.09. Following the sale, 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 transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 216,195 shares of company stock valued at $35,764,898. 11.64% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $24,383,677,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet in the first quarter valued at approximately $4,317,606,000. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $47,025,322,000 after acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,483,898,000 after purchasing an additional 15,968,487 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Price Performance

The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $165.90 and its 200-day moving average price is $174.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.77 and a quick ratio of 1.77. The firm has a market cap of $2.11 trillion, a PE ratio of 19.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.09 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGLGet Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.54% and a net margin of 30.86%. 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 prior year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.48%. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

Alphabet Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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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