Loop Capital Reiterates “Hold” Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)‘s stock had its “hold” rating reiterated by equities researchers at Loop Capital in a report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $170.00 price objective on the information services provider’s stock. Loop Capital’s price objective would suggest a potential downside of 8.23% from the stock’s previous close.

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of other reports. Bank of America reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Tuesday, June 11th. Susquehanna upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $170.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Monday, April 29th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 11th. KeyCorp upped their price target on Alphabet from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Alphabet from $185.00 to $205.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $193.66.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.2 %

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $185.24 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $2.29 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.05. Alphabet has a 1 year low of $115.35 and a 1 year high of $186.05. The company has a current ratio of 2.15, a quick ratio of 2.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $173.38 and a 200 day moving average price of $154.80.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.40. The company had revenue of $80.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $66.04 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 29.52% and a net margin of 25.90%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.17 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet will post 7.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total value of $600,175.38. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 9 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,655.91. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 800 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $159.56, for a total transaction of $127,648.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 7,991 shares in the company, valued at $1,275,043.96. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total transaction of $600,175.38. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 9 shares in the company, valued at $1,655.91. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 123,788 shares of company stock worth $21,143,403 over the last three months. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors raised its holdings in Alphabet by 14.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Alphabet by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 493,810,251 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $68,980,354,000 after buying an additional 6,374,756 shares in the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 39,754.9% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 6,025,667 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $841,725,000 after buying an additional 6,010,548 shares during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4,894.1% during the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 5,445,396 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,606,670,000 after acquiring an additional 5,336,359 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% 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.