Waters Parkerson & CO. LLC Grows Stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Waters Parkerson & CO. LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 1.1% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 23,235 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 261 shares during the period. Waters Parkerson & CO. LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $4,425,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOG. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,470,344,000 after purchasing an additional 3,189,592 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $19,894,651,000 after buying an additional 1,219,606 shares during the period. Capital International Investors increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.7% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 91,236,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $17,376,706,000 after purchasing an additional 5,758,244 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in Alphabet by 16.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 57,098,042 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $10,873,751,000 after buying an additional 7,917,625 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in Alphabet by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 39,148,500 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,455,571,000 after acquiring an additional 294,556 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total transaction of $104,537.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,303 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,377,014.99. This represents a 4.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.90, for a total transaction of $5,066,750.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,652,696 shares in the company, valued at approximately $413,555,306.40. This trade represents a 1.21% decrease in their position. 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 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on GOOG. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 11th. KeyCorp dropped their target price on Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. Needham & Company LLC lowered Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “cautious” rating in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “sell” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $203.94.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of GOOG stock opened at $167.43 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $160.19 and a 200 day moving average of $176.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.03 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $142.66 and a 1 year high of $208.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 9.36%.

Alphabet 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.