Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Buy” by Analysts

Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) have earned an average recommendation of “Buy” from the thirty-eight ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, twenty-eight have issued a buy recommendation and six have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $362.7333.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on GOOG. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $425.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Alphabet from $395.00 to $460.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. BMO Capital Markets restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $400.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Pivotal Research restated a “buy” rating and issued a $470.00 price objective (up from $420.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC set a $400.00 target price on Alphabet and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, March 13th.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.2%

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $384.34 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.92, a current ratio of 1.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market cap of $4.65 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.25. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $313.83 and a 200-day simple moving average of $309.58. Alphabet has a fifty-two week low of $149.49 and a fifty-two week high of $388.96.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $2.43. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.96 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 38.99% and a net margin of 37.92%.The company’s revenue was up 21.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.81 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 13.72 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 6.41%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other news, Director Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.00, for a total transaction of $37,842.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,621 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,908,391. This represents a 0.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.89, for a total value of $10,006,425.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,642,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $505,573,853.40. This represents a 1.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 158,553 shares of company stock valued at $47,951,856 over the last 90 days. 12.99% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Imprint Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at $31,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at $32,000. Nvest Wealth Strategies Inc. acquired a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $38,000. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. acquired a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $38,000. Finally, Tripletail Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at $40,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Reported huge Anthropic commitment to Google Cloud — The Information/Reuters reported Anthropic has agreed to spend roughly $200 billion with Google Cloud over multiple years, a deal that would materially boost cloud bookings and long?term revenue visibility. Anthropic commits $200B to Google Cloud (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts turning more bullish and lifting price targets — Multiple firms have raised targets (including a street?high $515 note), citing AI upside, custom models and accelerating cloud monetization, supporting higher valuation multiples. Analyst $515 target (TipRanks)
• Positive Sentiment: Record highs and strong Q1 fundamentals — Investors are pricing in Q1 beats (EPS and revenue), 60%+ cloud growth and a ballooning cloud backlog that underpins multi?year revenue conversion. That momentum is driving buying interest. Alphabet hits record highs (Yahoo)
• Positive Sentiment: Product / infrastructure moves could expand addressable market — Google moving to sell TPUs directly and scale AI compute options could accelerate revenue capture and challenge competitors in AI infrastructure. Google to sell TPUs directly (247WallSt)
• Neutral Sentiment: U.S. government access and stress?testing of AI models — The administration expanded programs to let government scientists and agencies review unreleased models (including DeepMind) to assess risks; this is a mix of oversight and validation. US stress tests of AI models (Reuters)
• Neutral Sentiment: Capital markets: large euro bond sale with strong demand — Alphabet tapped the euro market with a multi?tranche offering to fund AI infrastructure; strong order books reduce financing risk but also highlight heavy near?term CapEx plans. Euro bond offering (Reuters)
• Negative Sentiment: Employee unrest and DoD/defense work — DeepMind staff have pushed for union recognition and protested military contracts; classified DoD engagements raise reputational and retention risks that could affect operations. DeepMind union vote over military deals (Business Insider)
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/privacy push in EU — A top Google scientist warned that EU proposals to share search data with rivals could expose user data, signaling potential regulatory headwinds and business model risk if rules tighten. EU data sharing concerns (Reuters)

About Alphabet

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.