Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock Price Down 3.8% After Analyst Downgrade

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s share price traded down 3.8% on Tuesday after Zacks Research downgraded the stock from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating. The stock traded as low as $343.39 and last traded at $343.80. 28,723,616 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 11% from the average session volume of 32,385,434 shares. The stock had previously closed at $357.52.

Several other research analysts have also recently weighed in on GOOGL. BMO Capital Markets set a $465.00 price target on Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $425.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. KeyCorp lifted their price target on Alphabet from $425.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 10th. Citigroup reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, May 4th. Finally, Freedom Capital raised shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $419.86.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,998 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.29, for a total transaction of $3,142,911.42. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 75,290 shares in the company, valued at $26,298,044.10. This represents a 10.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $393.26, for a total value of $412,923.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 2,531 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $995,341.06. This trade represents a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders have sold 540,470 shares of company stock worth $14,873,168. 11.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s Gemini app has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, strengthening the case that its AI investments are gaining broad adoption and could support future advertising, cloud and subscription revenue. Google’s Gemini app surges to one billion users
• Positive Sentiment: Ryanair signed a five-year Google Cloud agreement covering Gemini, DeepMind and Workspace for 35,000 employees. The deal provides a notable enterprise validation of Alphabet’s AI and cloud offerings. Ryanair signs five-year Google Cloud deal
• Positive Sentiment: The Pixel 11 lineup, Pixel Watch 5 and $29 Pixel Tag expand Alphabet’s hardware ecosystem, while deeper Gemini integration could increase engagement across devices. Alphabet also disclosed a highly profitable SpaceX investment, highlighting gains from its strategic holdings. Google unveils Pixel 11 lineup
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and financial commentary continue to describe Alphabet as attractively valued following its strong second-quarter results, while Zacks Research shifted its rating from “strong buy” to “hold,” creating a more cautious near-term signal. Zacks Research
• Negative Sentiment: Prediction-market odds for a public Gemini Pro launch by August 14 collapsed to 4%, raising concerns that Alphabet may be falling behind OpenAI and Anthropic in frontier-model releases. Traders slash odds on imminent Gemini Pro launch
• Negative Sentiment: Nvidia’s proposed $500 billion AI-infrastructure financing framework could weaken demand for Alphabet’s custom chips and intensify competition for cloud customers and data-center spending. Nvidia financing deal threatens custom chips
• Negative Sentiment: Alphabet faces additional headwinds from $100 higher Pixel 11 prices, Australian news-payment rules, French publisher complaints over AI summaries and more than 3,000 youth-related lawsuits. These issues could increase costs, reduce device demand or create regulatory liabilities.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% in the 4th 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. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 146,193,037 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $45,625,595,000 after buying an additional 2,666,676 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $30,534,239,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 4.9% during the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 69,108,183 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $21,630,861,000 after buying an additional 3,218,852 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Trading Up 0.6%

The firm has a market capitalization of $4.23 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.35, a PEG ratio of 0.96 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.64 and a current ratio of 2.72. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $354.63 and a 200-day moving average price of $340.94.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The information services provider reported $9.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.89 by $6.22. The firm had revenue of $119.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $117.07 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 51.32% and a net margin of 54.77%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 20.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 7th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 4th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 4.42%.

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.