Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Stock Price Up 3.7% – Time to Buy?

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s stock price shot up 3.7% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $316.76 and last traded at $314.90. 33,526,383 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 43% from the average session volume of 23,500,928 shares. The stock had previously closed at $303.56.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and brokers have raised price targets and highlighted AI/cloud upside (UBS, Canaccord), citing Gemini adoption and generative‑AI capex that could add meaningful cloud revenue. UBS generative AI capex note
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet committed to a major $15B America‑India Connect initiative and announced partnerships (Zillow, Sea) that expand Gemini/Cloud into verticals — positive for long‑term cloud/ads monetization and market reach. America-India Connect announcement
• Positive Sentiment: Notable institutional buying from hedge funds (e.g., Appaloosa/Tepper, Altimeter, Viking) signals conviction in Alphabet’s AI/Cloud thesis and can support the stock through execution milestones. Appaloosa increases stake
• Neutral Sentiment: Product demos (Gemini AI coach, music features) and consumer launches (Pixel device with AI features) improve user engagement and positioning but are not immediate revenue drivers. Gemini demo on CNBC
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data for February shows anomalies (zeros/NaN) and provides no clear bearish signal at present; treat the statistic cautiously until reconciled.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: senior execs disclosed sizable sales (Sundar Pichai, John Kent Walker), which markets often view as a modest near‑term negative signal despite normal tax/liquidity reasons. Pichai sale filing Walker sale filing
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/IP risk: prosecutors have charged engineers in an alleged scheme to steal Google trade secrets and pass files abroad — reputational and security concerns that could invite regulatory scrutiny. Trade-secrets indictment
• Negative Sentiment: Execution/supply risks: DeepMind’s CEO warned that memory‑chip shortages constrain agentic AI research/deployment, which could slow rollout timing or raise costs for compute‑intensive initiatives. DeepMind chip shortage comments
• Negative Sentiment: Several institutional investors disclosed trims (Pershing Square, Longview, others). Broad portfolio rebalancing can weigh on near‑term sentiment even if longer‑term AI momentum remains. Pershing Square trim

Analyst Ratings Changes

GOOG has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $365.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, January 5th. KeyCorp set a $370.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and set a $360.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Scotiabank reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $400.00 price objective (up from $375.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $395.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have issued a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $343.90.

Alphabet Stock Up 3.7%

The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $320.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $278.09. The company has a market capitalization of $3.81 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.10.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.59 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 18.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.15 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.30, for a total transaction of $867,569.40. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 8,962 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,798,832.60. This trade represents a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock valued at $119,145,289. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Framtiden Holdings Management Co LLC purchased a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth approximately $15,721,000. SB Capital Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,285,000. Cambient Family Office LLC acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $25,490,000. McLaughlin Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $659,000. Finally, Bauman Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $677,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.