Leigh Baldwin & CO. LLC Purchases Shares of 880,260 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Leigh Baldwin & CO. LLC acquired a new position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 880,260 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $166,633,000. Alphabet makes up about 0.9% of Leigh Baldwin & CO. LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 29th largest holding.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently issued reports on GOOGL. Roth Mkm reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Rosenblatt Securities decreased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $205.00 to $189.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $180.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, Wedbush set a $190.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $199.75.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,824 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $187.43, for a total value of $529,302.32. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,024 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,815,948.32. This trade represents a 15.82% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.90, for a total value of $5,066,750.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,652,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $413,555,306.40. This trade represents a 1.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 179,324 shares of company stock valued at $30,153,353 in the last ninety days. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $152.75 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.85 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.98, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a 50-day moving average of $158.93 and a 200 day moving average of $175.27. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $207.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.30 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.89 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.55%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

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.