The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Communication Services company by 0.22% to 462.45 million shares with purchase of 1.0 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 7.81% valued currently at $64.6 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 1.08 million to 266.9 million shares. And Fidelity Management & Research Co has lifted its position by 4.81% or 9.3 million shares – to 202.81 million shares.
With over 18.74 million Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $142.65 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $2.67 billion. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 13.74% and its price on 01/12/24 gained nearly 0.40%. Currently, there are 5.96B common shares owned by the public and among those 5.90B shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 59 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for GOOGL have a consensus price objective of $155.59. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $180.00 and a low of $133.00. The average price target is 8.32% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -7.26% over that period. But an upside of 20.75% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $155.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 1 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 0 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 0 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 1 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 637 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Alphabet Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 185.92 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $25.97 billion. The company bought an additional 0.22 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.68 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 143.27 million shares valued at over $20.01 billion and representing 2.42% of the shares outstanding. SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust sold -0.4 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 72.42 million shares at a value of $10.12 billion. SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust now owns shares totaling to 1.22% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) opened at $142.67, up $0.59 from a prior closing price of $142.08. However, the script later moved the day high at 143.20, up 0.40%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 5.10% and 2.65% over the past three months. GOOGL shares are trading 2.12% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 55.87% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $88.57 and touched a high of $145.22 over the same period. GOOGL has an average intraday trading volume of 29.09 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 3.18%, 5.67%, and 12.90% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) shares accounts for 37.18% of the company’s 5.96B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 37.61%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 41.58% and 0.04% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1785.41B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.06. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 27.35, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $5.22. The company has a PEG of 1.46 and a Quick Ratio of 2.01 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.11. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.03% over the week and 1.81% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) will achieve an EPS of $1.59 for the current quarter, $1.48 for the next quarter and $6.68 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.43 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.75. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.05 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 25.88%, and 16.14% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 18.74% over the next five years, compared to 38.33% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 59 brokerage firm advisors rate Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.44. Specifically, 43 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 10 of the 59 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the GOOGL, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BMO Capital Markets stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on January 09, 2024, with the firm’s price target at $170.
