Alphabet stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
July 15th, 2019
3
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. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to pick and when is the best time to buy them. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.Only 1 of our buy setups matches with Alphabet stock now:
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | Yes |
| 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 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for GOOGL stock, with 13 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-7-15 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-6-24 | Moffett Nathanson | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-5-15 | Deutsche Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-30 | Morgan Stanley | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-3-4 | Needham & Company LLC | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-2-6 | Nomura | Buy | Outperform |
| 2019-2-5 | Wedbush | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-2-5 | SunTrust Banks | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-2-5 | Royal Bank of Canada | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-2-5 | Nomura | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-2-5 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-2-5 | Citigroup | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-2-5 | BMO Capital Markets | Market Perform | Market Perform |
| 2019-2-5 | BMO Capital Markets | Market Perform | Market Perform |
| 2019-2-5 | Barclays | Overweight | Overweight |
Alphabet stock analysis
Daily outlook
The Mountain View based company shares appreciated 0.45% to $1,150.51 today.
On April, GOOGL hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on July tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers. Shares of the Google parent Alphabet closed today at $1,150.51 and appreciated a slightly good 0.45%. On Wednesday GOOGL price bounced up over the SMA of 200 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. Since SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up on May, GOOGL price climbed $13.92 per share (1.22%). From a daily perspective, GOOGL is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($1,107.15, on Tuesday) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($1,153.24, on Thursday) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top GOOGL might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $1,153.24 or down under $1,107.15.
Weekly outlook
The Google parent Alphabet stayed steady a slightly good 0.45% this week. Counting this, it's been 3 green weeks in a row, gaining $67.71 or 6.02%.
The Mountain View based company is in a glaring downtrend, marking consecutive falling peaks and bottoms. Now is trading in between the - range. If the support holds the price, this might mark a double bottom configuration and create a flat-base to reverse this downtrend. Not so far away is the last price record the Google parent Alphabet marked late April. Since early July when GOOGL stock price broke up the SMA40w line, it gained $67.71 (6.25%). Since late April when SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up, GOOGL price slipped $-126.91 per share (-9.93%).
Alphabet stock price history
Alphabet IPO was on August 19th, 2004 at $50.05 per share1. Since then, GOOGL stock grew a 2,198.70%, with an average of 157.10% per year. If you had invested right after GOOGL's IPO a $1,000 in Alphabet stock in 2004, it would worth $21,987.00 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 $1,317.90
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. We found 7 price forecasts for GOOGL stock published in the last month:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-6-24 | Moffett Nathanson | Lowers Target | $1,290.00 | $1,250.00 | -3.1% |
| 2019-5-15 | Deutsche Bank | Raises Target | $1,300.00 | $1,400.00 | 7.7% |
| 2019-4-30 | Morgan Stanley | Lowers Target | $1,500.00 | $1,425.00 | -5% |
| 2019-2-5 | SunTrust Banks | Lowers Target | n/a | $1,350.00 | - |
| 2019-2-5 | Royal Bank of Canada | Lowers Target | n/a | $1,300.00 | - |
| 2019-2-5 | Credit Suisse Group | Reiterates | $1,450.00 | $1,400.00 | -3.4% |
| 2019-2-5 | BMO Capital Markets | Lowers Target | n/a | $1,100.00 | - |
| (in average) | $1,385.00 | $1,317.90 | -5.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
After publishing its last earnings report on April, Alphabet slipped a fateful -8.24%. As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will extend this review.| 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 turnover rocketed an extraordinary 23.42% to $136,819.00 M USD from $110,855.00 marked in 2017. Likewise, its income margin (compared to sales) skyrocketed to 22.46%, that is $30,736.00 million. To have an up to date view of the financial situation of Alphabet, we have calculated the trailing twelve month (TTM) sales and income figures. TTM values are the sum of the last 4 quarters and aproximate to an annual fiscal report ending in 2019-Q1 that can be compared to 2018 fiscal year results. Annual Alphabet TTM sales up to March 2019 were $142,012.00 and income was $27,992.00 M dollars. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem the Google parent Alphabet business evolution since December 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, inched a fine 3.80%. In contrast, profit margin (net income/revenues) slightly fell at 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 reported $36,339.00 million in revenues for 2019-Q1, a -7.48% less compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $6,657.00 million with a profit margin of 18.32%. Profit margin slightly fell 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 buy a company, it's always worth to review 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 | $344.5 B | $935.2 B | $150.7 B | $13.7 B | $1.4 B |
| Total shares | 299.4 M | 4,600.0 M | 488.0 M | 163.9 M | 48.4 M |
| Float shares | 602.8 M | 4,350.0 M | 483.9 M | 159.7 M | 44.6 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
| Monday, July 15th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $1145.34 |
| Close | $1150.51 |
| Day range | $1140.00 - $1150.68 |
| Previous close | $1145.34 |
| Session gain | 0.45% |
| Average true range | $17.12 |
| 50d mov avg | $1,120.61 |
| 100d mov avg | $1,158.11 |
| 200d mov avg | $1,124.05 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | lt02a |
Alphabet performance
Performance as an absolute value is never valid if it's not benchmarked against competitors or related stocks in the industry. We compared Alphabet against Apple, Adobe, Akamai Technologies, Blucora, Baidu, eBay, Facebook, , Microsoft and Yandex in the following table:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOOGLAlphabet | -7.33% | 3.90% | -3.95% |
| AAPLApple | 2.62% | 34.58% | 7.87% |
| ADBEAdobe | 14.11% | 24.75% | 19.89% |
| AKAMAkamai Technologi... | 10.79% | 26.87% | 5.78% |
| BCORBlucora | -15.65% | 3.97% | -21.85% |
| BIDUBaidu | -32.39% | -32.52% | -55.52% |
| EBAYeBay | 12.36% | 30.92% | 18.65% |
| FBFacebook | 14.38% | 35.90% | -2.87% |
| IAC | 6.43% | 17.07% | 54.31% |
| MSFTMicrosoft | 13.00% | 29.98% | 32.83% |
| YNDXYandex | 8.41% | 31.34% | 9.94% |
Alphabet competitors
One check before trading 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
- Seeking AlphaNow Is The Right Time To Buy AlphabetJuly 2, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAlphabet's Hidden JewelJune 26, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAlphabet Stock Performance Is Starting To Suffer From Dual Class StructureJune 26, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAlphabet: Too Much Regulatory FearJune 12, 2019
- InvestorPlaceGoogle Stock Investors Ponder Whether Alphabet Is Too Big To Break UpJune 12, 2019