Analysts Set Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Target Price at $201.35

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have earned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-eight research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $201.14.

Several research firms recently commented on GOOGL. Truist Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $196.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, September 16th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $200.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Alphabet from $205.00 to $190.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $205.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, September 5th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.00, for a total transaction of $114,576.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 31,334 shares in the company, valued at $5,264,112. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.00, for a total transaction of $114,576.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 31,334 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,264,112. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.85, for a total value of $278,775.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 30,824 shares in the company, valued at $5,728,640.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 217,592 shares of company stock worth $35,922,911 over the last quarter. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 497,874,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $75,144,172,000 after buying an additional 4,064,073 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in Alphabet by 14.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in Alphabet by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 49,472,478 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $9,011,412,000 after buying an additional 238,403 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Alphabet by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,178,075 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,310,925,000 after buying an additional 1,429,261 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 35,412,299 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,344,778,000 after buying an additional 597,756 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $165.86 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.05 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.44, a PEG ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.04. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $162.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $167.00. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $120.21 and a 52 week high of $191.75. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $70.60 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.44 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 9th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 12.27%.

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.