Frances Arnold Sells 111 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Director Frances Arnold sold 111 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Friday, May 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $172.41, for a total value of $19,137.51. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 17,268 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,977,175.88. The trade was a 0.64% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink.

Frances Arnold also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, April 30th, Frances Arnold sold 111 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $159.85, for a total value of $17,743.35.
• On Friday, March 28th, Frances Arnold sold 111 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.42, for a total value of $18,028.62.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.0%

GOOG opened at $169.39 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $161.29 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $176.14. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The company has a market cap of $2.06 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.04, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $208.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The firm’s revenue was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.89 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.50%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GOOG has been the subject of a number of research reports. Needham & Company LLC cut Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “cautious” rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 11th. Scotiabank lowered their target price on Alphabet from $232.00 to $200.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and five have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $204.88.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $64,299,725,000 after buying an additional 9,687,855 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,470,344,000 after buying an additional 3,189,592 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,894,651,000 after buying an additional 1,219,606 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.9% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,971,861,000 after buying an additional 9,243,959 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.7% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 91,236,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $17,376,706,000 after buying an additional 5,758,244 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.