Insider Selling: Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CAO Sells $229,863.60 in Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 953 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $241.20, for a total value of $229,863.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 17,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,171,312.80. The trade was a 5.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Amie Thuener O’toole also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, September 15th, Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $245.00, for a total value of $680,610.00.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.1%

GOOGL stock opened at $245.35 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $256.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.90 and a quick ratio of 1.90. The company has a market capitalization of $2.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.13, a PEG ratio of 1.66 and a beta of 1.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $221.25 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $185.96.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.16. The business 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%. Research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

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

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the second quarter worth $21,944,208,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the first quarter worth $4,317,606,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Alphabet by 17,667.7% in the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 15,245,075 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,686,640,000 after purchasing an additional 15,159,273 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 2.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares during the period. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 51.7% in the second quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 31,817,684 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,607,232,000 after purchasing an additional 10,843,853 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. KeyCorp upped their price objective on Alphabet from $230.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Saturday, September 27th. DA Davidson upped their price objective on Alphabet from $180.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 2nd. Westpark Capital upped their price objective on Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Alphabet from $191.00 to $224.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Four research 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $240.76.

About Alphabet

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.