Alphabet stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
May 20th, 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?
You can't be a successful trader if you don't follow a methodolgy or system that assist you in choosing companies and the correct market timing. Having a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.Check the only buy setup that matches with Alphabet stock now:
| 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 | Yes |
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 detected 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 |
| 2019-5-15 | 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 |
| 2019-1-7 | Pivotal Research | Hold | Buy |
| 2019-1-3 | Canaccord Genuity | Hold | Buy |
Alphabet stock analysis
Daily outlook
The Internet giant shares eased -2.06% to $1,144.66 today.
On April/29, 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 search giant eased a fateful -2.06% and closed at $1,144.66. On Tuesday, SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up triggering a rise of 0.71%.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Google decreased a fatal -2.06% this week. Late April GOOGL plummed a bloodcurdling -7.39% in just one week.
Not so far away is the last all-time high Alphabet marked late April. Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now trading upwards to the $1,296.97 resistance. Since SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up late April, GOOGL price slid a -10.39%. Since late February when GOOGL stock price broke up the SMA40w line, it gained $28.10 (2.52%).
Alphabet stock price history
Alphabet IPO was on August 19th, 2004 at $50.05 per share1. Since then, GOOGL stock surged a 2,187.00%, with a yearly average of 156.20%. If you had invested right after GOOGL's IPO a $1,000 in Alphabet stock in 2004, it would worth $21,870.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Alphabet stock historical price chart
GOOGL stock reached all-time highs on Apr 29th with a price of $1,296.97.
Alphabet stock price target is $1,316.40
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable 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 predictions for the Internet giant stock posted in the last month:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 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 | - |
| 2019-1-7 | Pivotal Research | Upgrades | n/a | $1,240.00 | - |
| (in average) | $1,416.70 | $1,316.40 | -7.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since last Apr 22nd, when Alphabet published its last earnings report, it fell a tragic -8.70%. 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 sales climbed an extraordinary 23.42% to $136,819.00 million dollars 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) skyrocketed 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 dollars. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review the Mountain View based company business evolution since December 2018: Annual sales up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, raised a decent 3.80%. Regarding profit margin, Alphabet declined -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 million with a profit margin of 18.32%. Profit margin decreased 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 outstanding gain and rocketed 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 shares of a company, it's 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 | $342.8 B | $869.4 B | $134.4 B | $12.6 B | $1.5 B |
| Total shares | 299.4 M | 4,600.0 M | 488.0 M | 164.1 M | 48.4 M |
| Float shares | 602.8 M | 4,340.0 M | 486.4 M | 159.9 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, May 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $1153.00 |
| Close | $1144.66 |
| Day range | $1138.14 - $1152.45 |
| Previous close | $1168.78 |
| Session gain | -2.06% |
| Average true range | $27.87 |
| 50d mov avg | $1,202.65 |
| 100d mov avg | $1,152.70 |
| 200d mov avg | $1,144.93 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lb02a |
Alphabet performance
Performance as an absolute value is never valid if it's not benchmarked against competitors or related stocks in the industry. In the following table, we compare Alphabet to Apple, Adobe, Akamai Technologies, Blucora, Baidu, eBay, Facebook, , Microsoft and Yandex:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOOGLAlphabet | 2.52% | 11.12% | 5.59% |
| AAPLApple | 11.33% | -1.54% | 2.99% |
| ADBEAdobe | 6.39% | 22.12% | 13.09% |
| AKAMAkamai Technologi... | 10.08% | 13.44% | 0.51% |
| BCORBlucora | 15.60% | 7.67% | -13.71% |
| BIDUBaidu | -29.68% | -35.63% | -51.78% |
| EBAYeBay | -2.12% | 29.05% | -3.28% |
| FBFacebook | 12.87% | 38.71% | -1.19% |
| IAC | 6.03% | 33.39% | 51.96% |
| MSFTMicrosoft | 14.16% | 23.44% | 30.41% |
| YNDXYandex | 9.44% | 30.24% | 10.75% |
Alphabet competitors
We picked a few stocks to conform a list of Alphabet competitors to review if you are interested in investing in GOOGL:- Apple (AAPL)
- Adobe (ADBE)
- Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
- Blucora (BCOR)
- Baidu (BIDU)
- eBay (EBAY)
- Facebook (FB)
- (IAC)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
- Yandex (YNDX)
Latest Alphabet stock news
- Investors.comStock Market Rebounds Bullishly; Facebook, Netflix, Alphabet Lead FANG RallyMay 15, 2019
- InvestorPlaceTo Boost GOOGL Stock, Alphabet Must Get Out of Its Own WayMay 8, 2019
- Seeking AlphaValuing Alphabet As Market Cap Moves Toward $1 TrillionMay 7, 2019
- InvestorPlaceHere’s Why You Should Buy The Dip In Alphabet StockMay 3, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAlphabet Stock Is Clearly a ShortMay 1, 2019