Alphabet’s (GOOGL) “Market Perform” Rating Reaffirmed at JMP Securities

JMP Securities restated their market perform rating on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in a research report released on Wednesday,Benzinga reports.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on GOOGL. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $178.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price objective on Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. DZ Bank downgraded Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $198.00 price target for the company. in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 17th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have issued a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $199.75.

Alphabet Trading Up 2.8%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $168.56 on Wednesday. Alphabet has a one year low of $140.53 and a one year high of $207.05. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $158.29 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84. The company has a market capitalization of $2.05 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 9.36%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.90, for a total transaction of $5,066,750.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,652,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $413,555,306.40. The trade was a 1.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Ruth Porat sold 17,690 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.48, for a total value of $3,245,761.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 1,449,286 shares in the company, valued at $265,914,995.28. This represents a 1.21% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 129,744 shares of company stock valued at $20,968,366 over the last three months. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $24,383,677,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the 1st quarter worth about $4,317,606,000. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $47,025,322,000 after purchasing an additional 22,100,902 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,483,898,000 after purchasing an additional 15,968,487 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 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.