Sanford C. Bernstein Raises Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target to $180.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its target price hoisted by Sanford C. Bernstein from $165.00 to $180.00 in a report issued on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Sanford C. Bernstein currently has a market perform rating on the information services provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on the company. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $158.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, April 17th. Wedbush reissued an outperform rating and set a $175.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $155.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on Alphabet from $160.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Redburn Atlantic boosted their price target on Alphabet from $150.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $187.82.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL opened at $171.95 on Friday. Alphabet has a twelve month low of $103.54 and a twelve month high of $174.71. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $147.85 and its two-hundred day moving average is $141.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.14 trillion, a PE ratio of 26.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.58 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:GOOGL) last announced 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. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.01% and a net margin of 25.90%. The company had revenue of $86.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $70.77 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.05 EPS. Research analysts anticipate 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 $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.47%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, CFO Ruth Porat sold 48,077 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $137.22, for a total transaction of $6,597,125.94. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,777,106 shares in the company, valued at approximately $243,854,485.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CFO Ruth Porat sold 48,077 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $137.22, for a total transaction of $6,597,125.94. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,777,106 shares in the company, valued at approximately $243,854,485.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 2,100 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.76, for a total value of $369,096.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 5,891 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,035,402.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 253,439 shares of company stock worth $36,746,578 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.88% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth $15,441,917,000. FMR LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 5.6% during the 3rd 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. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted 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 purchasing an additional 6,374,756 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado boosted its position in 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 during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its position in 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 during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.