Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director Frances Arnold Sells 103 Shares

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director Frances Arnold sold 103 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $243.13, for a total transaction of $25,042.39. Following the sale, the director directly owned 17,284 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,202,258.92. This trade represents a 0.59% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

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

• On Thursday, August 28th, Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.80, for a total transaction of $21,195.60.

Alphabet Stock Down 0.4%

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $243.10 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.90, a current ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The firm has a market cap of $2.94 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.89, a P/E/G ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 1.01. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $218.05 and its 200 day simple moving average is $184.24. Alphabet Inc. has a 12-month low of $140.53 and a 12-month high of $256.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $96.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $93.60 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 31.12% and a return on equity of 34.31%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 8th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Alphabet by 1.3% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 516,559,609 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $91,033,300,000 after acquiring an additional 6,733,278 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.1% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 141,615,284 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $24,857,017,000 after purchasing an additional 4,224,497 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Alphabet in the second quarter valued at approximately $21,944,208,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.2% during the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,151,820 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,780,875,000 after purchasing an additional 503,306 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the subject of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $215.00 to $275.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, September 22nd. BNP Paribas Exane restated a “neutral” rating and set a $172.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, June 27th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $184.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 29th. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $225.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 22nd. Finally, Loop Capital restated a “hold” rating and issued a $190.00 target price (up previously from $165.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, August 5th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-three have issued a Buy rating and ten have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $235.63.

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.