Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target Raised to $185.00 at Sanford C. Bernstein

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price target boosted by Sanford C. Bernstein from $165.00 to $185.00 in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has a market perform rating on the information services provider’s stock.

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Bank of America raised their target price on Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $180.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price target on shares of Alphabet from $225.00 to $192.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have issued a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $199.03.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.7 %

GOOGL opened at $161.96 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $162.18 and a 200 day simple moving average of $175.43. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $140.53 and a fifty-two week high of $207.05. The company has a market cap of $1.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.89 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.52%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 9.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,690 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.51, for a total transaction of $3,281,671.90. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 43,111 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,997,521.61. This trade represents a 29.09 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total transaction of $270,787.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,848 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 148,163 shares of company stock worth $25,361,647 over the last quarter. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.1% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 11,283,594 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,871,384,000 after purchasing an additional 337,031 shares during the last quarter. Passumpsic Savings Bank boosted its stake in Alphabet by 38.0% in the 3rd quarter. Passumpsic Savings Bank now owns 4,700 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $779,000 after purchasing an additional 1,294 shares during the period. SOA Wealth Advisors LLC. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. SOA Wealth Advisors LLC. now owns 37,379 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,199,000 after buying an additional 202 shares in the last quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 6.0% during the 3rd quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,306 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $382,000 after buying an additional 130 shares during the period. Finally, Te Ahumairangi Investment Management Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 19.2% during the third quarter. Te Ahumairangi Investment Management Ltd now owns 137,669 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,703,000 after buying an additional 22,169 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

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.