Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Raises Dividend to $0.21 Per Share

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, April 23rd, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a dividend of 0.21 per share by the information services provider on Monday, June 16th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 9th. This is a 5.0% increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20.

Alphabet has a dividend payout ratio of 8.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Alphabet to earn $10.23 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 8.2%.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL opened at $173.68 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $2.11 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.58, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. Alphabet has a 12-month low of $140.53 and a 12-month high of $207.05. The business has a 50 day moving average of $160.14 and a 200-day moving average of $174.35.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.89 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have commented on GOOGL shares. DA Davidson lowered their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $160.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on Alphabet from $220.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Susquehanna decreased their price target on Alphabet from $225.00 to $220.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Alphabet from $235.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on Alphabet from $220.00 to $180.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have given a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $199.75.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $168.71, for a total value of $5,483,075.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,587,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $436,570,192.16. This represents a 1.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total transaction of $104,537.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,303 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,377,014.99. The trade was a 4.21% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 195,770 shares of company stock worth $32,036,638 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Alphabet stock. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 3.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 506 shares during the quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $2,826,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.