Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Shares Up 1.1% on Analyst Upgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s stock price traded up 1.1% during trading on Tuesday after TD Cowen raised their price target on the stock from $350.00 to $355.00. TD Cowen currently has a buy rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as high as $341.20 and last traded at $336.43. 24,472,342 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 13% from the average session volume of 21,708,773 shares. The stock had previously closed at $332.73.

Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Wolfe Research upped their target price on Alphabet from $290.00 to $350.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Pivotal Research reissued a “buy” rating and set a $400.00 price target (up previously from $350.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, December 5th. Citigroup reissued a “market outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $280.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have assigned a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $318.36.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $288.26, for a total value of $800,786.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 11,739 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,383,884.14. This trade represents a 19.14% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total value of $5,614,173.81. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,531,453.08. The trade was a 29.32% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 192,087 shares of company stock valued at $58,525,556 over the last 90 days. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Apple deal and $4T milestone reinforce AI leadership and potential recurring licensing revenue (analysts estimate ~ $1B/year), widening Gemini’s distribution across Apple devices and validating Alphabet’s monetization path. Alphabet reaches $4 trillion valuation
• Positive Sentiment: Google launched “Personal Intelligence” in the Gemini app (beta), a feature that integrates user data across apps to deliver more personalized answers — a product lever that could boost engagement, search/ad relevance and paid AI services over time. Google Personal Intelligence launch
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street momentum: several bullish takes and price-target raises (including analyst upgrades and high-profile bulls like Jim Cramer) are supporting investor demand and helping push shares to record levels. This fuels momentum-driven buying and options activity. Analysts see AI-fueled upside
• Neutral Sentiment: Reputational/regulatory pressure — advocacy groups urged Apple and Google to remove X and Grok from app stores; this raises content-moderation scrutiny but is unlikely to hit Alphabet’s core revenue near term. Advocacy groups call on app stores to drop X and Grok
• Negative Sentiment: Grid/connectivity bottlenecks for U.S. transmission are delaying data‑center hookups in some regions (waits >10 years in spots). That constraint can slow Google Cloud capacity expansion, raise capital and operating costs (on-site generation, storage), and cap near-term cloud growth if not addressed. Grid is biggest challenge for connecting data centers
• Positive Sentiment: Supply-chain/manufacturing move — reports Google will develop/high-end smartphones in Vietnam, which could lower device costs and broaden hardware strategy tied to its ecosystem and Gemini distribution. Google to develop and manufacture smartphones in Vietnam

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. Bleakley Financial Group LLC raised its position in Alphabet by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 170,020 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $30,160,000 after purchasing an additional 2,304 shares during the last quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 157,143 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $38,272,000 after purchasing an additional 3,444 shares during the last quarter. American National Bank of Texas acquired a new position in Alphabet in the third quarter valued at $900,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its stake in Alphabet by 3.7% in the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,164,341 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $206,542,000 after purchasing an additional 42,028 shares during the period. Finally, Oldfather Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the second quarter valued at about $213,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Down 0.0%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 1.75 and a quick ratio of 1.75. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $310.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $253.40. The firm has a market cap of $4.06 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.17, a P/E/G ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.09.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.29 by $0.58. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.00% and a net margin of 32.23%.The firm had revenue of $102.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $99.90 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.12 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 8th were paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 8.28%.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.