Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.20

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 17th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, September 9th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, September 16th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 9th.

Alphabet has a dividend payout ratio of 9.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.64 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.3%.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL opened at $150.92 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $170.86 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $164.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 2.08. The firm has a market cap of $1.87 trillion, a P/E ratio of 23.15, a PEG ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.04. Alphabet has a 1-year low of $120.21 and a 1-year high of $191.75.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The business had revenue of $84.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $70.60 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.44 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $176.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 24th. TD Securities lifted their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 10th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on Alphabet from $200.00 to $206.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $206.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Finally, Truist Financial increased their target price on Alphabet from $190.00 to $196.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $202.81.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.68, for a total transaction of $3,570,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,137,385 shares in the company, valued at approximately $339,160,251.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $158.68, for a total value of $3,570,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,137,385 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $339,160,251.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.92, for a total transaction of $266,880.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 3,727 shares in the company, valued at approximately $663,107.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 178,032 shares of company stock valued at $29,854,224. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.