Brokerages Set Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) PT at $366.57

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fifty-one analysts that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, forty-three have issued a buy recommendation and three have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $367.1837.

A number of research firms have weighed in on GOOGL. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price target (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Argus boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $365.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. HSBC increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $335.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 2nd. KeyCorp set a $370.00 target price on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $360.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $321.21, for a total value of $10,439,325.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,244,372 shares in the company, valued at $720,914,730.12. This trade represents a 1.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,112,493 shares of company stock valued at $118,605,094. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $165,567,398,000 after purchasing an additional 12,531,695 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.8% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 146,193,037 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $45,625,595,000 after purchasing an additional 2,666,676 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Alphabet during the second quarter worth approximately $21,944,208,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE increased its position in Alphabet by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 69,108,183 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $21,630,861,000 after buying an additional 3,218,852 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.0%

Shares of Alphabet stock traded up $3.02 during trading on Friday, reaching $306.57. The stock had a trading volume of 3,757,531 shares, compared to its average volume of 34,613,992. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The company has a market capitalization of $3.71 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 1.10. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $319.37 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $288.58. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The business had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. Sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 7.77%.

About Alphabet

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.