Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL is Biondo Investment Advisors LLC’s 4th Largest Position

Biondo Investment Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 6.3% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 164,248 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 11,024 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises approximately 6.2% of Biondo Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 4th biggest position. Biondo Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $51,410,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Symmetry Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Symmetry Partners LLC now owns 7,912 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,476,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Members Trust Co lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Members Trust Co now owns 6,434 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,014,000 after acquiring an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Altfest L J & Co. Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Altfest L J & Co. Inc. now owns 7,952 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,489,000 after acquiring an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Insight 2811 Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Insight 2811 Inc. now owns 3,124 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $978,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Finally, LJI Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. LJI Wealth Management LLC now owns 7,265 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,274,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, April 20th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $370.00 to $430.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Wolfe Research dropped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $390.00 to $360.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 10th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, Loop Capital lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $355.00 to $490.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 15th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $413.13.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s drone unit Wing expanded its Walmart partnership into seven more U.S. cities, pushing the service toward nearly 20 markets and signaling that drone delivery is moving from experiment to scalable business. Alphabet’s Most Overlooked Division Just Had a Big Week
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo launched a new $29.99 monthly membership program with perks for frequent riders, a move that suggests the robotaxi business is building recurring revenue on top of rapid ride-growth. Waymo launches premier subscription tier for $29.99 a month, starting in select cities
• Positive Sentiment: TD Cowen raised its price target on Alphabet, adding to the bullish analyst backdrop and supporting the view that the stock still has room to run. Alphabet (GOOGL) Among Our Good Stocks to Buy Now
• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America and other commentary highlighted Alphabet as a long-term AI beneficiary, especially as rising model costs could strengthen demand for Google Cloud and infrastructure. Anthropic’s Priciest AI Model Yet Is Here. Why Alphabet and Amazon Will Benefit.
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet sued an alleged Chinese cybercrime group accused of using Google’s AI tools to run scam operations, which shows the company is actively defending its platform but is not likely to move the stock much on its own. Google sues alleged Chinese cybercrime operation that used AI to send scam texts
• Neutral Sentiment: Some investors noted that Altimeter Capital fully exited its Alphabet stake in Q1, but this appears more like portfolio repositioning than a company-specific warning. Billionaire Brad Gerstner Dumped All of His Alphabet Then Bought 2 Stocks Nobody Expected

Alphabet Stock Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $359.68 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.92, a current ratio of 1.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market capitalization of $4.36 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.44, a P/E/G ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $360.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $330.26. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $162.00 and a twelve month high of $408.61.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $2.47. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $106.98 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. Research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.3 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 8th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 8th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 6.71%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 617 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $289.63, for a total value of $178,701.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,923,235.59. The trade was a 5.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,993 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.89, for a total transaction of $2,481,078.77. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 51,808 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,293,309.12. This represents a 14.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 193,016 shares of company stock valued at $17,282,549 over the last three months. 11.61% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.