Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares closed lower during Thursday's session.

The European Commission recently launched an antitrust investigation into Google for using content from publishers and creators to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Meanwhile, Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion maintained an Overweight rating on Alphabet on Thursday and raised the price target from $330 to $365.

With the recent buzz around Alphabet, some investors may be eyeing potential gains from the company's dividends too. As of now, Alphabet has an annual dividend yield of 0.27%, which is a quarterly dividend amount of 21 cents per share (84 cents a year).

To figure out how to earn $500 monthly from Alphabet, we start with the yearly target of $6,000 ($500 x 12 months).

Next, we take this amount and divide it by Alphabet's $0.84 dividend: $6,000 / $0.84 = 7,143 shares.

So, an investor would need to own approximately $2,231,687 worth of Alphabet, or 7,143 shares to generate a monthly dividend income of $500.

Assuming a more conservative goal of $100 monthly ($1,200 annually), we do the same calculation: $1,200 / $0.84 = 1,429 shares, or $446,462 to generate a monthly dividend income of $100.

Note that dividend yield can change on a rolling basis, as the dividend payment and the stock price both fluctuate over time.

The dividend yield is calculated by dividing the annual dividend payment by the current stock price. As the stock price changes, the dividend yield will also change.

For example, if a stock pays an annual dividend of $2 and its current price is $50, its dividend yield would be 4%. However, if the stock price increases to $60, the dividend yield would decrease to 3.33% ($2/$60).

Conversely, if the stock price decreases to $40, the dividend yield would increase to 5% ($2/$40).

Further, the dividend payment itself can also change over time, which can also impact the dividend yield. If a company increases its dividend payment, the dividend yield will increase even if the stock price remains the same. Similarly, if a company decreases its dividend payment, the dividend yield will decrease.

GOOGL Price Action: Shares of Alphabet fell by 2.4% to close at $312.43 on Thursday.

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