Investors Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 279,082 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 131% compared to the typical volume of 120,925 call options.

Alphabet Trading Up 2.9 %

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $176.14 on Thursday. Alphabet has a 12-month low of $123.93 and a 12-month high of $193.31. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a market cap of $2.18 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.02, a PEG ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 1.04. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $163.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $170.30.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. Alphabet had a net margin of 26.70% and a return on equity of 30.49%. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $86.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.55 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Alphabet will post 7.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the business’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 value of $114,576.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 31,334 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,264,112. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 31,334 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,264,112. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 34,257 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.60, for a total transaction of $5,570,188.20. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 312,210 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,765,346. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 220,426 shares of company stock worth $35,993,340. Company insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Capital International Investors lifted its position in Alphabet by 9.3% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 87,716,562 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,355,724,000 after purchasing an additional 7,470,042 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in Alphabet by 19.7% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 84,171,721 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,815,986,000 after buying an additional 13,876,534 shares during the period. Capital World Investors grew its holdings in Alphabet by 2.2% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 45,731,826 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,963,128,000 after acquiring an additional 979,083 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 35,558,778 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $5,414,179,000 after acquiring an additional 684,968 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.5% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 14,657,421 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,688,743,000 after purchasing an additional 636,008 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on GOOG. Barclays upped their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Scotiabank initiated coverage on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, October 11th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $212.00 price objective for the company. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $200.56.

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.