John Kent Walker Sells 16,802 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) insider John Kent Walker sold 16,802 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.47, for a total transaction of $2,780,226.94. Following the sale, the insider now owns 43,999 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,280,514.53. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

John Kent Walker also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, September 3rd, John Kent Walker sold 21,467 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.35, for a total transaction of $3,442,233.45.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOG opened at $168.42 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $163.71 and a two-hundred day moving average of $168.51. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $121.46 and a 52-week high of $193.31. The company has a quick ratio of 2.08, a current ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a market cap of $2.08 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.83, a P/E/G ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) 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. The firm had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $84.22 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.44 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 16th. Investors of record on Monday, September 9th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 12.27%.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 19.7% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 84,171,721 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,815,986,000 after purchasing an additional 13,876,534 shares during the period. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth about $1,378,708,000. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.3% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 87,716,562 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,355,724,000 after acquiring an additional 7,470,042 shares in the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 51.8% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 6,416,150 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $976,923,000 after purchasing an additional 2,190,795 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vima LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 178,253.1% during the 1st quarter. Vima LLC now owns 2,001,122 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $304,691,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000,000 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOG has been the subject of several analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities downgraded Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Friday, June 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald raised Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Finally, DA Davidson raised shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $183.75.

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.