Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target Increased to $168.00 by Analysts at Wells Fargo & Company

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price objective hoisted by Wells Fargo & Company from $141.00 to $168.00 in a research report sent to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an equal weight rating on the information services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on the company. UBS Group raised their price target on Alphabet from $150.00 to $166.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, April 16th. BMO Capital Markets restated an outperform rating and issued a $185.00 price target (up previously from $178.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $168.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Wedbush increased their price target on Alphabet from $175.00 to $205.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Friday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $187.82.

Alphabet Stock Up 10.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $171.95 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.10, a current ratio of 2.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. Alphabet has a 12-month low of $103.54 and a 12-month high of $174.71. The company has a market cap of $2.14 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 1.05. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $147.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $141.39.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The information services provider reported $1.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $86.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $70.77 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.01% and a net margin of 25.90%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.05 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Alphabet will post 6.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Investors of record on Monday, June 10th will be issued a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 10th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.47%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 12.27%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total transaction of $94,769.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 27,920 shares in the company, valued at $4,009,032.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total transaction of $94,769.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 27,920 shares in the company, valued at $4,009,032.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.29, for a total value of $3,291,525.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,377,691 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $347,832,416.39. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 253,439 shares of company stock worth $36,746,578. Company insiders own 0.88% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth $15,441,917,000. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 5.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 227,317,469 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $29,746,764,000 after purchasing an additional 12,070,681 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 493,810,251 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $68,980,354,000 after purchasing an additional 6,374,756 shares in the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 39,754.9% in the 4th quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 6,025,667 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $841,725,000 after acquiring an additional 6,010,548 shares during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 4,894.1% in the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 5,445,396 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,606,670,000 after acquiring an additional 5,336,359 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.