Capital Analysts LLC Acquires 22,071 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Capital Analysts LLC lifted its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 58.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 59,558 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 22,071 shares during the period. Capital Analysts LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $11,275,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Optivise Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet by 8.0% in the fourth quarter. Optivise Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,464 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,035,000 after purchasing an additional 403 shares during the last quarter. Community Bank N.A. boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.4% during the fourth quarter. Community Bank N.A. now owns 46,173 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,741,000 after purchasing an additional 2,790 shares during the period. Premier Fund Managers Ltd increased its stake in Alphabet by 30.0% in the 4th quarter. Premier Fund Managers Ltd now owns 61,792 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $11,816,000 after buying an additional 14,262 shares during the period. Absolute Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Alphabet by 14.0% in the 4th quarter. Absolute Capital Management LLC now owns 2,096 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $401,000 after acquiring an additional 258 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Permanent Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $273,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Bank of America lifted their target price on Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $167.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Roth Mkm reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $199.03.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.16, for a total transaction of $5,075,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,685,196 shares in the company, valued at approximately $419,320,207.36. This represents a 1.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total transaction of $270,787.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 17,848 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,606,723.84. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 148,163 shares of company stock valued at $25,361,647 in the last ninety days. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.7 %

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $161.96 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The stock has a market cap of $1.97 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $162.18 and a 200 day moving average of $175.43. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The firm had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.89 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.52%. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 9.94%.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.