Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director Sells $115,500.00 in Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director John L. Hennessy sold 700 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.00, for a total value of $115,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 29,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,838,460. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

Alphabet Stock Up 2.3 %

GOOGL traded up $3.71 during trading on Monday, reaching $166.67. 22,395,573 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 28,178,512. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $175.61 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $162.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 2.08. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $120.21 and a fifty-two week high of $191.75. The stock has a market cap of $2.06 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The business had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $70.60 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.44 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.62 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 12.27%.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position 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 purchasing an additional 4,064,073 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth approximately $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 14.4% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,724,251,000 after purchasing an additional 7,275,757 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 49,472,478 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,011,412,000 after purchasing an additional 238,403 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Alphabet by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,316,902,000 after purchasing an additional 1,472,043 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on GOOGL. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $160.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Alphabet from $195.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on Alphabet in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $240.00 price target for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $208.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Argus boosted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $203.74.

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.