Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock Price Up 1% – Time to Buy?

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares shot up 1% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $321.87 and last traded at $321.00. 20,559,419 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 14% from the average session volume of 23,830,875 shares. The stock had previously closed at $317.75.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Raymond James Financial set a $275.00 price target on Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 24th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $330.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $250.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $285.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $310.54.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.0%

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $279.62 and a 200 day moving average price of $227.71. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.87 trillion, a P/E ratio of 31.66, a P/E/G ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 30th. The information services provider reported $2.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The business had revenue of $102.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 35.00%. The business’s revenue was up 15.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.12 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 8th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 8.28%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.66, for a total value of $32,401.32. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,104 shares in the company, valued at $5,750,916.64. This trade represents a 0.56% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $319.50, for a total transaction of $10,383,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,272,119 shares in the company, valued at approximately $725,942,020.50. This represents a 1.41% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 228,906 shares of company stock worth $62,127,158. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GOOG. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 416,753,033 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $73,927,821,000 after acquiring an additional 5,182,111 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 188,914,125 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $33,511,477,000 after purchasing an additional 2,428,266 shares in the last quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 580,897.4% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 135,087,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $23,963,208,000 after buying an additional 135,064,454 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Alphabet by 0.4% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 107,760,033 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,022,926,000 after buying an additional 441,177 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 8.6% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 99,529,742 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $24,240,469,000 after buying an additional 7,904,434 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 27.26% 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.