Citigroup Issues Positive Forecast for Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock Price

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) had its target price increased by analysts at Citigroup from $350.00 to $390.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “buy” rating on the information services provider’s stock. Citigroup’s price objective points to a potential upside of 21.00% from the stock’s previous close.

Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of Alphabet from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. CICC Research upped their price target on Alphabet from $240.00 to $303.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on Alphabet from $305.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday. President Capital boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $258.00 to $323.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $385.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $357.46.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ GOOGL traded down $8.94 during trading on Friday, hitting $322.31. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 41,952,116 shares, compared to its average volume of 35,576,953. The company has a quick ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $321.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $269.25. The firm has a market cap of $3.89 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 1.09. Alphabet has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 36.21%. Equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total transaction of $35,060,852.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $319.50, for a total transaction of $10,383,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,272,119 shares in the company, valued at approximately $725,942,020.50. The trade was a 1.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,035,186 shares of company stock worth $94,458,941. 11.64% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new position in Alphabet in the second quarter valued at $21,944,208,000. Berkshire Hathaway Inc bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,338,397,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 17,667.7% in the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 15,245,075 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,686,640,000 after acquiring an additional 15,159,273 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $165,567,398,000 after acquiring an additional 12,531,695 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors raised its holdings in Alphabet by 28.0% during the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 53,107,572 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $12,910,542,000 after acquiring an additional 11,605,785 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Quarterly beat and AI/cloud momentum — Alphabet topped Q4 revenue and EPS estimates, reported ~48% cloud growth, reported >$400B in annual revenue, and disclosed rapid Gemini adoption that supports longer-term monetization and enterprise demand. Alphabet Crushes Earnings — MarketBeat
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street tilt higher — multiple firms raised price targets and reaffirmed buy/overweight ratings after the results, signaling analyst confidence in Alphabet’s AI and ad/cloud runway. Price Target Raises — MarketScreener
• Neutral Sentiment: Dividend announced — Alphabet declared a small quarterly dividend (modest yield) that slightly increases shareholder returns but is unlikely to move the stock materially.
• Neutral Sentiment: ETF flows/market structure — new ETFs (e.g., Burney U.S. Factor Rotation) are packaging big-cap tech exposure, which can support demand over time but is a secondary factor vs. earnings and capex news. Burney ETF — Benzinga
• Negative Sentiment: Massive 2026 capex forecast spooked investors — Alphabet guided to $175–$185B of 2026 capital spending to build AI compute and cloud capacity; the size of the ramp is weighing on near-term sentiment and drove the initial post-earnings selloff. Capex Outlook — Reuters
• Negative Sentiment: Broader AI-driven tech pullback — fears of an AI bubble have triggered sector-wide selling that removes some support for big-cap AI spenders, amplifying Alphabet’s capex concern. AI Sell-Off — CNBC
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling flagged — recent reports of insider selling have added to short-term pressure and contributed to the stock’s decline in early trading. Insider Selling — AmericanBankingNews
• Negative Sentiment: Employee protest over government contracts — >800 Google workers petitioned management over cloud services used by immigration agencies, a reputational/governance risk that can attract regulatory and PR attention. Employee Protest — NYTimes

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.