Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Receives $307.22 Consensus Price Target from Analysts

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) have received an average recommendation of “Buy” from the forty-one ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have issued a hold recommendation, twenty-nine have given a buy recommendation and seven have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $307.2222.

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on GOOG shares. Bank of America raised their price objective on Alphabet from $280.00 to $335.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. BMO Capital Markets restated an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, October 30th. 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. Finally, Raymond James Financial set a $275.00 target price on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, October 24th.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of GOOG opened at $318.39 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $3.84 trillion, a P/E ratio of 31.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 1.75 and a quick ratio of 1.75. Alphabet has a 1 year low of $142.66 and a 1 year high of $328.67. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $275.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $223.79.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The firm had revenue of $102.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 35.00%. Alphabet’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.12 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 8th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 8.28%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.66, for a total transaction of $32,401.32. Following the sale, the director directly owned 18,104 shares in the company, valued at $5,750,916.64. This represents a 0.56% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $296.64, for a total value of $9,640,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,304,619 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $683,642,180.16. This trade represents a 1.39% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 196,406 shares of company stock valued at $51,743,408 over the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. RDA Financial Network increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 5.3% during the second quarter. RDA Financial Network now owns 11,094 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,968,000 after acquiring an additional 554 shares during the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC grew its stake 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 period. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.7% during the 2nd 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 last quarter. Oldfather Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the 2nd quarter valued at $213,000. Finally, Tower View Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. Tower View Wealth Management LLC now owns 27,644 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $4,904,000 after purchasing an additional 1,776 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.