Barclays Increases Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Price Target to $200.00

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its target price hoisted by Barclays from $173.00 to $200.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the information services provider’s stock. Barclays‘s target price suggests a potential upside of 28.21% from the company’s current price.

A number of other research analysts have also issued reports on GOOGL. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and set a $160.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Roth Mkm lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $166.00 to $164.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $168.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $144.00 to $141.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $150.00 to $166.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $164.41.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $156.00 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $147.22 and a 200-day simple moving average of $141.16. Alphabet has a one year low of $102.63 and a one year high of $160.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 2.10 and a current ratio of 2.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.94 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.90, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The information services provider reported $1.64 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.04. Alphabet had a net margin of 24.01% and a return on equity of 27.22%. The business had revenue of $86.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $70.77 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.05 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Alphabet will post 6.78 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $157.41, for a total value of $3,541,725.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,303,011 shares in the company, valued at approximately $362,516,961.51. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $157.41, for a total value of $3,541,725.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,303,011 shares in the company, valued at approximately $362,516,961.51. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Ruth Porat sold 48,077 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $137.22, for a total transaction of $6,597,125.94. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 1,777,106 shares in the company, valued at $243,854,485.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 251,339 shares of company stock worth $36,377,482. 0.88% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 493,810,251 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $68,980,354,000 after buying an additional 6,374,756 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake in Alphabet by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 227,317,469 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $29,746,764,000 after buying an additional 12,070,681 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at about $15,441,917,000. Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 67,684,197 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,857,154,000 after purchasing an additional 2,416,328 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 45,220,857 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,316,902,000 after purchasing an additional 1,472,043 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

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.