Arete Research Issues Positive Forecast for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock Price

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its price target raised by Arete Research from $380.00 to $405.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning,MarketScreener reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the information services provider’s stock.

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of other reports. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on Alphabet from $375.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price target on Alphabet from $305.00 to $335.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Mizuho raised their price target on Alphabet from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 price objective (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Roth Mkm upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $365.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $361.64.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock traded up $0.97 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $311.93. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 7,292,991 shares, compared to its average volume of 35,621,699. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $321.68 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $273.37. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.76 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. Alphabet has a one year low of $140.53 and a one year high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $111.24 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. 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 is currently 7.77%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $34,680.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,307 shares in the company, valued at $6,224,380. This represents a 0.55% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $335.18, for a total value of $10,893,350.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,179,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $730,481,906.96. This represents a 1.47% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 2,067,086 shares of company stock worth $105,184,255 in the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. PMV Capital Advisers LLC bought a new position in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $38,000. Kentucky Trust Co boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 142.9% during the 4th quarter. Kentucky Trust Co now owns 170 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $53,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 2nd quarter worth about $31,000. iSAM Funds UK Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at about $53,000. Finally, Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $53,000. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple firms lifted price targets and reiterated buy ratings (Arete, New Street, President Capital, Daiwa and JPMorgan), reflecting upside expectations from AI and cloud momentum. Arete price target raise
• Positive Sentiment: EU antitrust regulators unconditionally cleared Google’s $32B acquisition of Wiz (cloud security), removing a major regulatory overhang and supporting strategic cloud/security scale. EU approval for Wiz
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud continues to convert AI demand into revenue and operating income (Cloud growth and $5.3B operating income called out), underpinning longer‑term earnings upside despite higher capex. Cloud profitization
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet expanded a large debt offering (reports that the deal topped $30B) — strong investor demand but increases corporate leverage to fund AI infrastructure; market reaction depends on perceived returns from the spending. Debt sale report
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet was reported to be a backer in a $520M funding round for humanoid robotics startup Apptronik — strategic exposure to robotics/AI ecosystems but not a direct earnings driver yet. Apptronik funding
• Neutral Sentiment: AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird‑6 unfolding (a MarketBeat piece) references Google as a strategic partner/investor — a peripheral positive for Alphabet’s ecosystem exposure but limited near‑term direct impact on GOOGL stock. AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 6
• Negative Sentiment: Coverage of Alphabet issuing rare 100‑year bonds has raised fresh concerns about debt‑fuelled AI competition and long‑dated credit risk; some strategists call century bonds “untested waters,” which can weigh on sentiment despite strong demand. 100‑year bond concerns
• Negative Sentiment: A TechCrunch report says Google provided personal and financial information on a student journalist to ICE under a subpoena that lacked judge approval — heightened privacy/regulatory risk that can attract scrutiny and reputational damage. Data/ICE report

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.