Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director Sells $33,106.00 in Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.53, for a total transaction of $33,106.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 7,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,293,285.89. This trade represents a 2.50 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.7 %

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $165.49 on Friday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $185.70 and its 200-day simple moving average is $176.46. The company has a market cap of $2.02 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.56, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.03 and a 1 year high of $207.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.48%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 9.94%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Tableaux LLC acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth $454,000. Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $377,984,000. PKO Investment Management Joint Stock Co acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $14,197,000. Northstar Financial Companies Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $1,269,000. Finally, Centaurus Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.1% in the 4th quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 62,856 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $11,899,000 after purchasing an additional 1,316 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on GOOGL. KeyCorp raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Wedbush raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, DZ Bank cut shares of Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $198.00 target price for the company. in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $210.62.

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.