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

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, October 29th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 9th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the information services provider on Monday, December 16th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.45%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 9th.

Alphabet has a payout ratio of 9.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Alphabet to earn $8.65 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 9.2%.

Alphabet Trading Up 2.9 %

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $176.14 on Thursday. 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 firm has a 50-day moving average of $163.56 and a 200-day moving average of $170.30. Alphabet has a 52-week low of $123.93 and a 52-week high of $193.31. The stock has a market cap of $2.18 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.02, a PEG ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 1.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. Alphabet had a net margin of 26.70% and a return on equity of 30.49%. The firm had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $86.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.55 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet will post 7.64 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on GOOG shares. Scotiabank assumed coverage on Alphabet in a research note on Friday, October 11th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $212.00 price objective on the stock. Barclays raised their price target on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Alphabet to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $200.56.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.00, for a total transaction of $114,576.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 31,334 shares in the company, valued at $5,264,112. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $168.00, for a total transaction of $114,576.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 31,334 shares in the company, valued at $5,264,112. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.30, for a total transaction of $3,741,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,106,806 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $350,361,837.80. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 220,426 shares of company stock worth $35,993,340. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

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.