Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Announces $0.20 Quarterly Dividend

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th.

Alphabet has a payout ratio of 7.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.93 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 9.0%.

Alphabet Price Performance

NASDAQ:GOOGL traded up $0.27 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $191.60. 28,450,377 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 27,877,746. The company has a market cap of $2.35 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. Alphabet has a 1 year low of $130.66 and a 1 year high of $207.05. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $190.83 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.52.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total value of $270,787.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,848 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 16,820 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.62, for a total value of $3,239,868.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 43,981 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,471,620.22. This represents a 27.66 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 89,529 shares of company stock valued at $16,600,078. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Roth Mkm upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $206.00 to $212.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Pivotal Research increased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price objective on Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Alphabet from $187.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $210.62.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.