Alphabet stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
4
Alphabet Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides online advertising services in the United States and internationally. The company offers performance and brand advertising services.
Should I buy Alphabet stock?
Make a decision about when to buy or sell stocks is one of the hardest parts of being a trader or investor. That's why is so important to choose your own trading plan that matches with your character as inversor. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, Alphabet stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Alphabet stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 15 ratings published for GOOGL stock in the last month. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for GOOGL stock, with 13 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-2 | MKM Partners | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-29 | JMP Securities | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-26 | Wedbush | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-26 | Susquehanna Bancshares | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-7-26 | Royal Bank of Canada | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-26 | Nomura | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-26 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-7-26 | Mizuho | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-26 | Mizuho | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-26 | KeyCorp | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-7-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Overweight | Positive |
| 2019-7-26 | Jefferies Financial Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-26 | Jefferies Financial Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-26 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-26 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Outperform |
Alphabet stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of the Google parent Alphabet ended today at $1,229.84 and declined an unpleasant -0.72%.
The Google parent Alphabet closed today at $1,229.84 and declined an unpleasant -0.72%. Since last July when GOOGL stock price broke up the SMA200d line, it gained $105.55 (9.39%). Since SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up on May, GOOGL price climbed $93.25 per share (8.20%).
Weekly outlook
Shares of Alphabet slightly fell an unpleasant -0.82% this week.
Observing the weekly chart, price is in a simple uptrend, tested $1,142.75 level and now climbing back aiming its last top at $1,268.39. Far behind is the all-time high the Internet giant marked late April but price is just -5.18% below that top. Since price and SMA40w lines crossed up early July, GOOGL climbed $147.04 (13.58%). Since SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up late April, GOOGL price slid a -3.72%.
Alphabet stock price history
Alphabet IPO was on August 19th, 2004 at $50.05 per share1. Since then, GOOGL stock surged a 2,357.20%, with a yearly average of 157.10%. If you had invested $1,000 in Alphabet stock in 2004, it would worth $23,572.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Alphabet stock historical price chart
GOOGL stock reached all-time highs on April with a price of $1,296.97.
Alphabet stock price target is $1,469.50
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. For the last 30 days we found 10 price targets for Alphabet stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-7-29 | JMP Securities | Raises Target | n/a | $1,450.00 | - |
| 2019-7-26 | Wedbush | Raises Target | $1,350.00 | $1,500.00 | 11.1% |
| 2019-7-26 | Susquehanna Bancshares | Raises Target | n/a | $1,550.00 | - |
| 2019-7-26 | Royal Bank of Canada | Raises Target | n/a | $1,425.00 | - |
| 2019-7-26 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $1,400.00 | $1,450.00 | 3.6% |
| 2019-7-26 | Mizuho | Raises Target | $1,350.00 | $1,400.00 | 3.7% |
| 2019-7-26 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Raises Target | $1,310.00 | $1,420.00 | 8.4% |
| 2019-7-26 | Jefferies Financial Group | Reiterates | $1,450.00 | $1,500.00 | 3.4% |
| 2019-7-26 | Jefferies Financial Group | Raises Target | $1,450.00 | $1,500.00 | 3.4% |
| 2019-7-26 | Credit Suisse Group | Raises Target | $1,400.00 | $1,500.00 | 7.1% |
| (in average) | $1,387.10 | $1,469.50 | 6.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
After posting its last earnings report on April, Alphabet . Unfortunately, reported EPS is not yet available in our database.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 8.14 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-26 | 8.33 | 9.57 | 14.9% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-01 | 9.98 | 9.7 | -2.8% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-23 | 9.21 | 9.93 | 7.8% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-23 | 9.45 | 11.75 | 24.3% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-25 | 10.54 | 13.06 | 23.9% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-04 | 11.08 | 12.77 | 15.3% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-22 | 10.59 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Alphabet annual revenues rocketed a dazzling 23.42% to $136,819.00 million USD from $110,855.00 marked in 2017. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, in the same way, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) boosted a 11.04% to 22.46%. Alphabet presents anual results in December, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, Alphabet TTM sales up to March 2019 were $142,012.00 and earnings $27,992.00 M USD. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem the Google parent Alphabet business evolution since December 2018: Annual revenues up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, inched a fine 3.80%. Regarding profit margin, Alphabet decreased -2.75% to 22.46%| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $59,730 M | - | $12,210 M20.4% | - |
| 2014 | $66,001 M | 10.50% | $14,444 M21.9% | 18.30% |
| 2015 | $74,989 M | 13.62% | $16,348 M21.8% | 13.18% |
| 2016 | $90,272 M | 20.38% | $19,478 M21.6% | 19.15% |
| 2017 | $110,855 M | 22.80% | $12,662 M11.4% | -34.99% |
| 2018 | $136,819 M | 23.42% | $30,736 M22.5% | 142.74% |
| TTM | $142,012 M | 3.80% | $27,992 M19.7% | -8.93% |
Quarterly financial results
Alphabet posted $36,339.00 M in sales for 2019-Q1, a -7.48% less compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $6,657.00 M with a profit margin of 18.32%. Profit margin depreciated a -4.46% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 22.78%. When comparing turnover to same quarter last year, Alphabet sales marked an amazing increase and climbed a 16.67%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $26,010 M | - | $3,520 M13.5% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $27,960 M | 7.50% | $6,730 M24.1% | 91.19% |
| 2017-Q4 | $32,323 M | 15.60% | $-3,020 M-9.3% | -144.87% |
| 2018-Q1 | $31,146 M | -3.64% | $9,401 M30.2% | -411.29% |
| 2018-Q2 | $32,657 M | 4.85% | $3,195 M9.8% | -66.01% |
| 2018-Q3 | $33,740 M | 3.32% | $9,192 M27.2% | 187.70% |
| 2018-Q4 | $39,276 M | 16.41% | $8,948 M22.8% | -2.65% |
| 2019-Q1 | $36,339 M | -7.48% | $6,657 M18.3% | -25.60% |
Alphabet ownership
When you are planning to invest in a stock, it's worth to have a look its ownership structure.Alphabet shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.16% of all shares. Investopedia has a good article about the top 5 Alphabet shareholders.
Bearish positions for GOOGL stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to Alphabet:
| GOOGL | AAPL | ADBE | AKAM | BCOR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $368.4 B | $998.7 B | $134.9 B | $14.7 B | $1.0 B |
| Total shares | 299.5 M | 4,520.0 M | 485.4 M | 163.9 M | 48.6 M |
| Float shares | 601.6 M | 4,260.0 M | 483.7 M | 160.5 M | 45.0 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 81.0% | 61.0% | 88.9% | 91.0% | 100.0% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 3.1% | 1.8% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Alphabet summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $1233.64 |
| Close | $1229.84 |
| Day range | $1223.58 - $1242.77 |
| Previous close | $1238.75 |
| Session gain | -0.72% |
| Average true range | $18.50 |
| 50d mov avg | $1,188.40 |
| 100d mov avg | $1,154.95 |
| 200d mov avg | $1,145.16 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lb01a |
Alphabet performance
To measure stock performance is always good to compare with competitors or related stocks. For Alphabet, the benchmark is made against Apple, Adobe, Akamai Technologies, Blucora, Baidu, eBay, Facebook, , Microsoft and Yandex.| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOOGLAlphabet | 9.28% | 1.84% | 4.92% |
| AAPLApple | 11.58% | 16.54% | 3.09% |
| ADBEAdobe | -7.16% | 7.02% | 6.53% |
| AKAMAkamai Technologi... | 13.85% | 25.55% | 21.67% |
| BCORBlucora | -32.28% | -36.15% | -41.87% |
| BIDUBaidu | -7.82% | -35.36% | -52.91% |
| EBAYeBay | 1.13% | 10.94% | 19.90% |
| FBFacebook | -0.63% | 15.57% | 16.57% |
| IAC | 5.37% | 5.18% | 9.72% |
| MSFTMicrosoft | 2.14% | 19.97% | 23.96% |
| YNDXYandex | -8.33% | 1.30% | 8.39% |
Alphabet competitors
One check before investing in any stock is to review a list of its competitors, in this case for Alphabet. We chose 10 companies as Alphabet competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- Apple (AAPL)
- Adobe (ADBE)
- Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
- Blucora (BCOR)
- Baidu (BIDU)
- eBay (EBAY)
- Facebook (FB)
- (IAC)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
- Yandex (YNDX)
Latest Alphabet stock news
- InvestorPlaceAlphabet Stock Is Still Not Reaping the Benefits of the Company’s GrowthAugust 1, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAlphabet is Making Up for Google’s Lost Cloud DecadeAugust 1, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAnalysts Are Still Underestimating Alphabet After Beating EarningsJuly 31, 2019
- InvestorPlace3 Reasons to Trust Alphabet Stock Despite Its Huge RallyJuly 31, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAlphabet Isn’t Struggling, but Google Stock Has Topped out for NowJuly 30, 2019