Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Shares Down 1% – Time to Sell?

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s share price dropped 1% during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as low as $242.77 and last traded at $244.05. Approximately 32,335,200 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 12% from the average daily volume of 36,579,031 shares. The stock had previously closed at $246.54.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the topic of several recent research reports. Tigress Financial raised their price target on Alphabet from $240.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 5th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Alphabet from $208.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Guggenheim raised their price target on Alphabet from $190.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 23rd. Westpark Capital increased their target price on Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-three have given a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $233.44.

Alphabet Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $2.95 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.99, a PEG ratio of 1.66 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $215.93 and a 200 day simple moving average of $183.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $96.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $93.60 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 8th were paid a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 23,820 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.70, for a total value of $4,637,754.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,999 shares in the company, valued at $8,371,905.30. This trade represents a 35.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.76, for a total value of $2,786,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 240,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $44,656,704. This represents a 5.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 257,866 shares of company stock worth $52,363,610. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 516,559,609 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $91,033,300,000 after acquiring an additional 6,733,278 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after acquiring an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.1% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 141,615,284 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $24,857,017,000 after acquiring an additional 4,224,497 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $21,944,208,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,151,820 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,780,875,000 after acquiring an additional 503,306 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.