Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Shares Up 2% – What’s Next?

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s stock price traded up 2% during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $167.85 and last traded at $167.29. 7,967,802 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 69% from the average session volume of 25,801,908 shares. The stock had previously closed at $163.99.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GOOGL. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. JMP Securities reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. DZ Bank cut shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $198.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Citizens Jmp cut shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird restated an “outperform” rating and set a $205.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Ten investment 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $210.59.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.9 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.04 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.02. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $182.57 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $176.65.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. On average, research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th were paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 10th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 9.94%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,374 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.47, for a total value of $238,347.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,024 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,606,213.28. The trade was a 8.38 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.53, for a total transaction of $33,106.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 7,813 shares in the company, valued at $1,293,285.89. This trade represents a 2.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 93,048 shares of company stock worth $17,374,274 over the last three months. Company insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth about $24,383,677,000. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $47,025,322,000 after acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 17.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,178,470,000 after purchasing an additional 10,135,430 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Alphabet by 16.2% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,635,878,000 after purchasing an additional 10,037,685 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 15.9% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 66,050,135 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $12,503,291,000 after purchasing an additional 9,042,271 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.