Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Reaches New 52-Week High After Analyst Upgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday after Oppenheimer raised their price target on the stock from $172.00 to $185.00. Oppenheimer currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Alphabet traded as high as $159.23 and last traded at $158.61, with a volume of 2956032 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $156.14.

GOOG has been the subject of several other research reports. Raymond James lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $150.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Susquehanna lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $150.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.67, for a total transaction of $3,502,575.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,325,513 shares in the company, valued at $362,012,608.71. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.67, for a total transaction of $3,502,575.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,325,513 shares in the company, valued at $362,012,608.71. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,258 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.97, for a total value of $508,150.26. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 144,685 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,566,519.45. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 250,539 shares of company stock valued at $35,906,259 over the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in GOOG. Tandem Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC bought a new position in Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Partnership Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. HWG Holdings LP acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Finally, Equitec Proprietary Markets LLC bought a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Alphabet Stock Performance

The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $145.51 and its 200-day simple moving average is $140.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.27, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a current ratio of 2.10, a quick ratio of 2.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The information services provider reported $1.64 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $86.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $85.28 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 27.22% and a net margin of 24.01%. Alphabet’s quarterly revenue was up 13.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.05 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 6.77 EPS for the current year.

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.