Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been given an average rating of “Moderate Buy” by the thirty-nine brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, twenty-seven have issued a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $324.8077.

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. Rosenblatt Securities set a $279.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Raymond James Financial set a $275.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 24th. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $330.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Barclays raised their price target on Alphabet from $250.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on Alphabet from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th.

Alphabet Price Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $291.74 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $3.53 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.77, a PEG ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a quick ratio of 1.90, a current ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $254.94 and a 200 day simple moving average of $207.64. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $292.34.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.29 by $0.58. Alphabet had a return on equity of 36.08% 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 last year, the firm posted $2.12 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 8th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.28%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.15, for a total value of $8,129,875.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,369,619 shares in the company, valued at approximately $592,760,192.85. The trade was a 1.35% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $245.00, for a total transaction of $680,610.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 17,293 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,236,785. This trade represents a 13.84% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 221,796 shares of company stock valued at $53,983,001. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of GOOG. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 580,897.4% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 135,087,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $23,963,208,000 after purchasing an additional 135,064,454 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet during the 2nd quarter valued at $4,298,572,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 1st quarter valued at $2,622,943,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 2.4% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $64,299,725,000 after acquiring an additional 9,687,855 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 9.9% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $15,971,861,000 after acquiring an additional 9,243,959 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

About Alphabet

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.