Insider Selling: Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Insider Sells 17,690 Shares of Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) insider Ruth Porat sold 17,690 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.48, for a total transaction of $3,245,761.20. Following the sale, the insider now owns 1,449,286 shares in the company, valued at approximately $265,914,995.28. This trade represents a 1.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Alphabet Trading Down 2.7 %

NASDAQ GOOG opened at $181.58 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $194.02 and its 200 day moving average price is $177.34. The company has a market capitalization of $2.21 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.00. Alphabet Inc. has a 12 month low of $131.55 and a 12 month high of $208.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.94%.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,470,344,000 after purchasing an additional 3,189,592 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,894,651,000 after acquiring an additional 1,219,606 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.7% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 91,236,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $17,376,706,000 after acquiring an additional 5,758,244 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 16.1% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 57,098,042 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $10,873,751,000 after acquiring an additional 7,917,625 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 39,148,500 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,455,571,000 after acquiring an additional 294,556 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $212.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $209.13.

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.