Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Cut to “Hold” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday.

Several other research analysts also recently weighed in on GOOGL. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Dbs Bank lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $400.00 to $460.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $445.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating and issued a $460.00 price target (up from $400.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $420.00 price target on Alphabet and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have assigned a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $419.86.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $373.51 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $4.57 trillion, a PE ratio of 18.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.24. Alphabet has a 12 month low of $190.12 and a 12 month high of $408.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 2.72 and a quick ratio of 2.64. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $357.60 and a 200-day simple moving average of $339.62.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 22nd. The information services provider reported $9.11 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.89 by $6.22. Alphabet had a net margin of 54.77% and a return on equity of 51.32%. The business had revenue of $119.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $117.07 billion. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 20.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 7th will be given a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 4th. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 4.42%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In related news, major shareholder 2019 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 118,138 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $18.90, for a total transaction of $2,232,808.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Frances Arnold sold 82 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $333.39, for a total transaction of $27,337.98. Following the sale, the director directly owned 18,914 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,305,738.46. This trade represents a 0.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 600,547 shares of company stock worth $16,255,540 over the last three months. 11.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth about $30,534,239,000. Cardano Risk Management B.V. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 855.3% in the fourth quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 14,525,280 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $4,546,413,000 after acquiring an additional 13,004,828 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $165,567,398,000 after purchasing an additional 12,531,695 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 28.0% in the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 53,107,572 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,910,542,000 after purchasing an additional 11,605,785 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diamant Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 28,950.0% in the first quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,291,926 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,671,986,000 after purchasing an additional 9,259,940 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong earnings and analyst support: Alphabet’s latest results significantly exceeded consensus expectations, reinforcing confidence in accelerating revenue and profit growth. Multiple reports describe the stock as undervalued or a favorable growth investment, while analysts maintain a consensus “Buy” rating. Alphabet Stock is Climbing: What’s Going On Today?
• Positive Sentiment: AI infrastructure positioning: Commentary argues Alphabet is better equipped than many peers to absorb the cost of Nvidia chips while benefiting from expanding AI demand. Investors also see Google Search, cloud services, and AI infrastructure as complementary growth engines. Berkshire Hathaway’s reported investment in Alphabet adds to the bullish narrative. The Nvidia Tax: Alphabet Mitigates It Better
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo validation: An analysis reported that Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxis crash substantially less often than human-driven vehicles. While Waymo is not yet a major earnings contributor, the finding supports Alphabet’s long-term autonomous-driving and technology portfolio. Waymo robotaxis found to crash 68% less often
• Positive Sentiment: Commercial AI momentum: Google’s partnership with Paris Saint-Germain and participation in upcoming White House AI-regulation discussions highlight expanding enterprise and institutional interest in its AI capabilities. Paris Saint-Germain partners with Google on AI
• Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft’s lead in cloud market share remains a competitive concern, although Alphabet’s Google Cloud continues to grow and benefits from the same AI spending cycle. Microsoft Races Ahead of Google in the Cloud
• Neutral Sentiment: Investors are weighing whether heavy AI capital expenditures will temporarily pressure margins or create durable long-term returns.
• Negative Sentiment: A Google Earth tool reportedly made it possible to create AI-generated fake satellite imagery, raising questions about safeguards, misinformation, and potential regulatory scrutiny. For a Day, Google Made It Easy to Spoof Satellite Imagery

About Alphabet

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.