Morgan Stanley Raises Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target to $375.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its target price lifted by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $330.00 to $375.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “overweight” rating on the information services provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective points to a potential downside of 2.17% from the company’s previous close.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $425.00 price objective on Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Dbs Bank boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 17th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $425.00 target price (up from $395.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $450.00 target price (up from $375.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Alphabet from $395.00 to $460.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $390.65.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ GOOGL traded up $33.38 on Thursday, hitting $383.32. 46,660,612 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 32,187,412. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $312.08 and its 200-day moving average price is $307.27. Alphabet has a 52-week low of $147.84 and a 52-week high of $384.30. The company has a market capitalization of $4.64 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $2.47. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The business had revenue of $109.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $106.59 billion. Equities analysts expect that Alphabet will post 11.53 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other news, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,993 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.89, for a total transaction of $2,481,078.77. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 51,808 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,293,309.12. This represents a 14.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.89, for a total value of $10,006,425.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,642,060 shares in the company, valued at $505,573,853.40. This represents a 1.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 2,037,192 shares of company stock valued at $94,182,217 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Brighton Jones LLC increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $20,886,000 after buying an additional 4,110 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,826,000 after buying an additional 506 shares during the last quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 17.6% during the 2nd quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY now owns 3,888 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $685,000 after buying an additional 581 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 11.2% during the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 485,486 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $85,557,000 after buying an additional 48,805 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 48,204 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,495,000 after buying an additional 3,120 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Blowout Q1 results — Alphabet reported $5.11 EPS and $109.9B revenue, with Google Cloud topping estimates and enterprise AI demand cited as the driver. This is the primary catalyst for the stock rally. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud growth: Cloud revenue grew ~63% YoY to surpass $20B, signaling strong monetization of AI infrastructure and helping re-rate Alphabet as a leader in enterprise AI. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Subscriptions and ads: YouTube and Google One subscription expansion (25M net adds) plus an ad uplift support durable revenue mix diversification beyond search. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Street lifts targets: A large group of brokers raised price targets and reaffirmed buy/outperform views (examples include Citigroup, Goldman, JPMorgan), amplifying buying momentum. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: AI capex guidance and capacity: Management signaled continued heavy capex into 2027 to support AI data centers — investors accepted the growth story but the spending cadence remains a watch item for margins. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Data center buildouts progressing: Local deals to power new Google data centers (e.g., OG&E in Oklahoma) reduce execution risk on capacity expansion needed for cloud/AI demand. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and governance risks: Italy asked the EU to probe Google’s AI search tools over publisher concerns, and Switzerland opened a probe into alleged keyword-bidding pacts — European regulatory pressure could mean fines, product limits or business-model constraints. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Investor & employee scrutiny: Shareholders pressed Alphabet for safeguards on cloud/AI use by governments, and internal pushback surfaced over expanded Pentagon AI access — these governance issues raise reputational and policy risks. Read More.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.