TD Cowen Increases Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target to $200.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price objective upped by TD Cowen from $170.00 to $200.00 in a report issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the information services provider’s stock.

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Evercore ISI lifted their target price on Alphabet from $160.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Alphabet from $174.00 to $196.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday. Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their target price on Alphabet from $190.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday. Mizuho lifted their target price on Alphabet from $170.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on Alphabet from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $189.44.

Alphabet Stock Down 3.4 %

GOOGL stock opened at $166.15 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $2.07 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 1.05. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $148.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $141.62. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $103.71 and a 52 week high of $174.71. The company has a quick ratio of 2.10, a current ratio of 2.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.49 by $0.40. The business had revenue of $80.54 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $66.04 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 29.52% and a net margin of 25.90%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.17 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 6.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 10th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 10th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total value of $94,769.40. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 27,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,009,032.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.29, for a total transaction of $3,291,525.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,377,691 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $347,832,416.39. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total value of $94,769.40. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 27,920 shares in the company, valued at $4,009,032.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 253,209 shares of company stock valued at $36,711,144. 0.88% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 493,810,251 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $68,980,354,000 after purchasing an additional 6,374,756 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 5.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 227,317,469 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $29,746,764,000 after purchasing an additional 12,070,681 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $15,441,917,000. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in Alphabet by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 67,684,197 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,857,154,000 after buying an additional 2,416,328 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its position in Alphabet by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,316,902,000 after buying an additional 1,472,043 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.