Alphabet Stock Is Trading Higher Monday: What's Going On?

Alphabet Inc. GOOG stock traded higher on Monday after Morgan Stanley weighed in on the stock. Here’s what you need to know.

What To Know: Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on Alphabet and raised its price target from $185 to $205.

The company is set to report second quarter earnings on Wednesday after the market closes.

Analysts estimate earnings per share of $2.17 and revenue of $93.72 billion. Over the past few quarters, the company has beaten both EPS and revenue expectations.

In the first quarter, Alphabet reported earnings of $2.81 per share, topping the consensus estimate of $2.02. Revenue came in at $90.23 billion, beating the $89.20 billion estimate by 1.16% and marking a 12% year-over-year increase.

The company broke down its first-quarter results further, noting a 10% year-over-year increase in Google Services revenue to $77.3 billion, driven by strong performance across Google Search, subscriptions, platforms, and devices. Google Cloud revenue rose 28% to $12.3 billion, led by growth in Google Cloud Platform.

Analyst Changes: Ahead of the earnings report, multiple other analysts have issued price target adjustments.

• UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley maintained a Neutral rating on Alphabet and raised the price target from $186 to $192.
• BMO Capital analyst Brian Pitz reiterated an Outperform rating on Alphabet and raised the price target from $200 to $208.

The consensus price target for Alphabet is $163.07, with the lowest price target at $115 and the highest price target at $235.

How To Buy Alphabet Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Alphabet – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy “fractional shares,” which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to “go short” a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.

GOOG Price Action: At the time of writing, Alphabet stock closed Monday up 2.8% at $191.15, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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