Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Downgraded to “Moderate Buy” Rating by Phillip Securities

Phillip Securities cut shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) from a strong-buy rating to a moderate buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on GOOG. UBS Group boosted their target price on Alphabet from $186.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. KeyCorp set a $265.00 price objective on Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Roth Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $232.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Finally, Scotiabank lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $227.56.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.4%

GOOG stock opened at $234.16 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $2.83 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.94, a PEG ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet has a twelve month low of $142.66 and a twelve month high of $238.40. The company has a quick ratio of 1.90, a current ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The business has a fifty day moving average of $197.78 and a 200-day moving average of $177.12.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $96.43 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $93.67 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 8th will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 8th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $199.92, for a total value of $6,497,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,462,392 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $492,281,408.64. The trade was a 1.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 23,820 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.70, for a total value of $4,637,754.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,999 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,371,905.30. The trade was a 35.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 254,710 shares of company stock valued at $49,208,380 in the last three months. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 416,753,033 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $73,927,821,000 after buying an additional 5,182,111 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position 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 worth $33,511,477,000 after buying an additional 2,428,266 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its position in shares of 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 worth $23,963,208,000 after buying an additional 135,064,454 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% during 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 during the period. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in Alphabet by 9.9% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,971,861,000 after acquiring an additional 9,243,959 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is 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.