Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Trading Up 3.7% – What’s Next?

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s stock price rose 3.7% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as high as $316.76 and last traded at $314.90. Approximately 33,526,383 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 43% from the average daily volume of 23,500,928 shares. The stock had previously closed at $303.56.

Alphabet News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and brokers have raised price targets and highlighted AI/cloud upside (UBS, Canaccord), citing Gemini adoption and generative‑AI capex that could add meaningful cloud revenue. UBS generative AI capex note
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet committed to a major $15B America‑India Connect initiative and announced partnerships (Zillow, Sea) that expand Gemini/Cloud into verticals — positive for long‑term cloud/ads monetization and market reach. America-India Connect announcement
• Positive Sentiment: Notable institutional buying from hedge funds (e.g., Appaloosa/Tepper, Altimeter, Viking) signals conviction in Alphabet’s AI/Cloud thesis and can support the stock through execution milestones. Appaloosa increases stake
• Neutral Sentiment: Product demos (Gemini AI coach, music features) and consumer launches (Pixel device with AI features) improve user engagement and positioning but are not immediate revenue drivers. Gemini demo on CNBC
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data for February shows anomalies (zeros/NaN) and provides no clear bearish signal at present; treat the statistic cautiously until reconciled.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: senior execs disclosed sizable sales (Sundar Pichai, John Kent Walker), which markets often view as a modest near‑term negative signal despite normal tax/liquidity reasons. Pichai sale filing Walker sale filing
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/IP risk: prosecutors have charged engineers in an alleged scheme to steal Google trade secrets and pass files abroad — reputational and security concerns that could invite regulatory scrutiny. Trade-secrets indictment
• Negative Sentiment: Execution/supply risks: DeepMind’s CEO warned that memory‑chip shortages constrain agentic AI research/deployment, which could slow rollout timing or raise costs for compute‑intensive initiatives. DeepMind chip shortage comments
• Negative Sentiment: Several institutional investors disclosed trims (Pershing Square, Longview, others). Broad portfolio rebalancing can weigh on near‑term sentiment even if longer‑term AI momentum remains. Pershing Square trim

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on GOOG. Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Rosenblatt Securities set a $279.00 price objective on Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $345.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $370.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Raymond James Financial raised shares of Alphabet from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $315.00 to $400.00 in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $343.90.

Alphabet Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $3.81 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a current ratio of 2.01. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $320.86 and a 200-day moving average price of $278.09.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.59 by $0.23. The company had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.15 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. 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, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.30, for a total transaction of $10,637,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,211,872 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $723,945,705.60. This represents a 1.45% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock valued at $119,145,289. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Nvest Wealth Strategies Inc. purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $38,000. Imprint Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter worth $31,000. Bard Associates Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at $41,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Towne Trust Company N.A boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 34.0% in the 4th quarter. Towne Trust Company N.A now owns 134 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.