Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sells 22,500 Shares

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.68, for a total transaction of $3,570,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,137,385 shares in the company, valued at $339,160,251.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.

Sundar Pichai also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, August 21st, Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $167.66, for a total transaction of $3,772,350.00.
• On Wednesday, August 7th, Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.35, for a total value of $3,652,875.00.
• On Wednesday, July 17th, Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $182.84, for a total transaction of $4,113,900.00.
• On Thursday, June 20th, Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.40, for a total transaction of $3,991,500.00.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOGL traded up $0.83 during trading on Thursday, hitting $157.28. 11,249,723 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 27,555,016. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a market cap of $1.94 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.27, a P/E/G ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.05. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $172.04 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $164.11. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $120.21 and a 1 year high of $191.75.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $84.74 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $70.60 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.44 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.51%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 12.27%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 497,874,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $75,144,172,000 after buying an additional 4,064,073 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in Alphabet by 14.4% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 0.5% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 49,472,478 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $9,011,412,000 after buying an additional 238,403 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 3.4% during 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 acquiring an additional 1,472,043 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on Alphabet from $215.00 to $220.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Loop Capital reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $170.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, July 3rd. Cantor Fitzgerald assumed coverage on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $190.00 target price on the stock. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, July 16th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $240.00 price target for the company. Finally, Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $190.00 to $212.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $202.81.

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.