William Blair Analysts Raise Earnings Estimates for Alphabet

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) – Equities research analysts at William Blair lifted their Q1 2025 earnings estimates for shares of Alphabet in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday, February 4th. William Blair analyst R. Schackart now anticipates that the information services provider will post earnings per share of $1.99 for the quarter, up from their prior forecast of $1.98. The consensus estimate for Alphabet’s current full-year earnings is $8.02 per share. William Blair also issued estimates for Alphabet’s Q4 2025 earnings at $2.36 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $8.64 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $9.66 EPS.

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of other reports. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $180.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Pivotal Research raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup cut their target price on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $229.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Alphabet from $204.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $210.62.

Alphabet Trading Down 3.3 %

GOOGL stock opened at $185.34 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $191.28 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.64. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $130.66 and a fifty-two week high of $207.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a current ratio of 1.95. The firm has a market cap of $2.27 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.99.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th will be issued a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.43%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 10.61%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 37,134 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.02, for a total value of $6,870,532.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 282,832 shares in the company, valued at approximately $52,329,576.64. The trade was a 11.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total transaction of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,848 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,606,723.84. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 89,529 shares of company stock worth $16,600,078 over the last three months. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Warwick Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. Warwick Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,753 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $900,000 after acquiring an additional 195 shares in the last quarter. Summit X LLC increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Summit X LLC now owns 28,499 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $5,398,000 after acquiring an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. Windle Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at about $315,000. Moors & Cabot Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.2% during the fourth quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 148,663 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $28,142,000 after acquiring an additional 6,006 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bender Robert & Associates increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Bender Robert & Associates now owns 58,933 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $11,156,000 after acquiring an additional 784 shares in the last quarter. 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.