BMO Capital Markets Reiterates Outperform Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

BMO Capital Markets reissued their outperform rating on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $222.00 target price on the information services provider’s stock, up from their prior target price of $215.00.

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of other research reports. TD Securities upped their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on Alphabet from $176.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research report on Friday, May 24th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $200.00 price objective (up previously from $160.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, April 26th. Morgan Stanley reissued an overweight rating and issued a $195.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, May 15th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Alphabet from $168.00 to $187.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Monday, July 8th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-seven have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $200.44.

Alphabet Stock Down 0.0 %

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $177.66 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.25, a PEG ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a quick ratio of 2.15, a current ratio of 2.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. Alphabet has a 52-week low of $118.22 and a 52-week high of $191.75. The business’s 50 day moving average is $178.88 and its two-hundred day moving average is $159.23.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.49 by $0.40. The company had revenue of $80.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 company earned $1.17 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Alphabet will post 7.61 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 10th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.45%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 12.27%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 2,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.76, for a total value of $369,096.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 5,891 shares in the company, valued at $1,035,402.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.67, for a total value of $113,668.94. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,284 shares in the company, valued at $4,880,764.28. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 2,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.76, for a total transaction of $369,096.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 5,891 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,035,402.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 124,488 shares of company stock worth $21,866,705. Company insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 14.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,724,251,000 after purchasing an additional 7,275,757 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 39,754.9% during the 4th quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 6,025,667 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $841,725,000 after purchasing an additional 6,010,548 shares in the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 4,894.1% during the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 5,445,396 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,606,670,000 after purchasing an additional 5,336,359 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.