Truist Financial Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

20 Sep 2024, 08:46 by Sarita Garza · The Markets Daily

Truist Financial reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL – Free Report) in a report released on Monday, Benzinga reports. Truist Financial currently has a $196.00 price target on the information services provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on GOOGL. JMP Securities restated a market outperform rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. They issued a neutral rating and a $190.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Alphabet from $200.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Wolfe Research started coverage on Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. They issued an outperform rating and a $240.00 price objective for the company. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $201.08.

Read Our Latest Research Report on GOOGL

Alphabet Price Performance

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $162.14 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a current ratio of 2.08. The company has a 50-day moving average of $165.15 and a 200-day moving average of $165.11. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $120.21 and a 52 week high of $191.75. The company has a market capitalization of $2.00 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.87, a PEG ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The company had revenue of $84.74 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $70.60 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.44 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Alphabet will post 7.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 9th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 9th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.49%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 12.27%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total value of $600,175.38. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 9 shares in the company, valued at $1,655.91. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.63, for a total value of $3,614,175.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,114,885 shares in the company, valued at approximately $339,713,977.55. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 3,262 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.99, for a total transaction of $600,175.38. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 9 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,655.91. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 180,167 shares of company stock valued at $29,762,606. 11.55% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Alphabet by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 497,874,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $75,144,172,000 after buying an additional 4,064,073 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth about $15,441,917,000. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in Alphabet by 14.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 57,803,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,724,251,000 after purchasing an additional 7,275,757 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 49,472,478 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,011,412,000 after purchasing an additional 238,403 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.3% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,178,075 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,310,925,000 after purchasing an additional 1,429,261 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

About Alphabet

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