Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Price Target Raised to $220.00 at Barclays

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) had its price objective upped by Barclays from $200.00 to $220.00 in a report published on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the information services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on GOOG. TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Scotiabank began coverage on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, October 11th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $212.00 target price for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $200.56.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.0 %

GOOG opened at $172.65 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 1.95 and a quick ratio of 2.08. The company has a market cap of $2.13 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.04. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $163.81 and a 200 day simple moving average of $170.53. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $128.11 and a fifty-two week high of $193.31.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $86.39 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. Alphabet’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.55 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 7.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.46%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 10.61%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,835 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.53, for a total transaction of $429,587.55. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,182 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,421,948.46. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,835 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.53, for a total value of $429,587.55. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,182 shares in the company, valued at $4,421,948.46. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 800 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.75, for a total transaction of $123,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 28,524 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,385,565. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 230,244 shares of company stock worth $37,776,954. 12.99% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOG. Cullinan Associates Inc. raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 8.4% in the first quarter. Cullinan Associates Inc. now owns 124,621 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $18,975,000 after purchasing an additional 9,612 shares during the period. Westhampton Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 23.9% in the first quarter. Westhampton Capital LLC now owns 4,040 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $615,000 after purchasing an additional 780 shares during the period. Deepwater Asset Management LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 18.5% during the first quarter. Deepwater Asset Management LLC now owns 89,082 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,564,000 after acquiring an additional 13,927 shares during the period. Exchange Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Alphabet by 2.9% during the first quarter. Exchange Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,091 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $927,000 after acquiring an additional 170 shares during the period. Finally, Financial Strategies Group Inc. increased its position in Alphabet by 22.8% during the first quarter. Financial Strategies Group Inc. now owns 43,876 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,939,000 after acquiring an additional 8,156 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

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.