Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock Price Up 1.2%

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shot up 1.2% on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $161.59 and last traded at $160.93. 4,015,537 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 80% from the average session volume of 20,071,459 shares. The stock had previously closed at $158.99.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on GOOG. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $205.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Rosenblatt Securities cut Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Friday, June 28th. DA Davidson raised Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Wolfe Research raised Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald raised Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $182.86.

Alphabet Price Performance

The firm has a 50 day moving average of $167.19 and a 200-day moving average of $166.60. The company has a market cap of $1.99 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.66, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.04. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The business had revenue of $84.74 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $84.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.44 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.63 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 9th were paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.50%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 12.27%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 34,257 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.60, for a total value of $5,570,188.20. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 312,210 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,765,346. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 34,257 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.60, for a total transaction of $5,570,188.20. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 312,210 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,765,346. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.63, for a total transaction of $3,614,175.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,114,885 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $339,713,977.55. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 202,667 shares of company stock valued at $33,964,256 in the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Capital International Investors grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.3% during the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 87,716,562 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,355,724,000 after buying an additional 7,470,042 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in Alphabet by 19.7% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 84,171,721 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,815,986,000 after acquiring an additional 13,876,534 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors increased its stake in Alphabet by 2.2% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 45,731,826 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,963,128,000 after purchasing an additional 979,083 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 35,558,778 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,414,179,000 after purchasing an additional 684,968 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sanders Capital LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 28,558,000 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $4,024,679,000 after purchasing an additional 813,428 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.