Citigroup Raises Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target to $190.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price target increased by Citigroup from $168.00 to $190.00 in a research note released on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the information services provider’s stock.

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of other reports. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $155.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Redburn Atlantic increased their target price on Alphabet from $150.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Wedbush reissued an outperform rating and set a $175.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. KeyCorp raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $150.00 to $166.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $189.44.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $166.15 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a current ratio of 2.15 and a quick ratio of 2.10. The stock 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 stock has a 50-day moving average of $148.36 and a 200-day moving average of $141.62. Alphabet has a one year low of $103.71 and a one year high of $174.71.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.49 by $0.40. Alphabet had a return on equity of 29.52% and a net margin of 25.90%. The business had revenue of $80.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $66.04 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.17 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet will post 6.82 earnings per share for the current 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 issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. 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 firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total transaction of $94,769.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 27,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,009,032.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 660 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $143.59, for a total transaction of $94,769.40. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 27,920 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,009,032.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.29, for a total value of $3,291,525.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,377,691 shares in the company, valued at approximately $347,832,416.39. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 253,209 shares of company stock valued at $36,711,144 in the last quarter. 0.88% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in 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 buying an additional 6,374,756 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 5.6% in 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 bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter worth $15,441,917,000. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.7% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 67,684,197 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,857,154,000 after purchasing an additional 2,416,328 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,316,902,000 after purchasing an additional 1,472,043 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

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.