Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Buy” Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Needham & Company LLC reissued their buy rating on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $210.00 price target on the information services provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Argus boosted their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Tigress Financial boosted their target price on Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $200.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on Alphabet in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $240.00 target price on the stock. Finally, DA Davidson began coverage on Alphabet in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $170.00 target price on the stock. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-one have assigned a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $205.51.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $171.29 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $2.11 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.72, a P/E/G ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a current ratio of 1.95, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $126.93 and a 1-year high of $191.75. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $162.43 and its 200 day moving average is $169.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $72.85 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 31.66% and a net margin of 27.74%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.55 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 7.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 9th will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.47%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 10.61%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.44, for a total value of $109,420.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 32,017 shares in the company, valued at $5,136,807.48. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 10,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $180.78, for a total value of $1,898,190.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 330,466 shares in the company, valued at $59,741,643.48. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.44, for a total value of $109,420.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 32,017 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,136,807.48. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 230,244 shares of company stock worth $37,776,954 over the last quarter. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 43,005.6% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 18,743,594 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $31,086,250,000 after acquiring an additional 18,700,111 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 587.4% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 10,690,326 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,772,991,000 after acquiring an additional 9,135,056 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its stake in Alphabet by 14.4% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,724,251,000 after buying an additional 7,275,757 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 116.4% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 8,670,225 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,437,957,000 after buying an additional 4,662,809 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wulff Hansen & CO. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 18,810.2% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,434,260 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $807,700,000 after buying an additional 4,410,811 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.