Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. Takes $699,000 Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. purchased a new position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor purchased 3,672 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $699,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Fiduciary Advisors Inc. bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. LSV Asset Management bought a new stake in Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $27,000. WealthTrak Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth $38,000. Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter worth about $39,000. Finally, Noble Wealth Management PBC bought a new stake in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $43,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.16, for a total transaction of $5,075,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,685,196 shares in the company, valued at approximately $419,320,207.36. This trade represents a 1.20 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,824 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,024 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,815,948.32. This trade represents a 15.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 146,824 shares of company stock valued at $25,086,603. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ GOOG opened at $155.75 on Friday. 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 company has a market capitalization of $1.89 trillion, a PE ratio of 19.35, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a fifty day moving average of $161.33 and a two-hundred day moving average of $176.93. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $142.66 and a 1 year high of $208.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted 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 return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm 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 dividend of $0.21 per share. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.54%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.36%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GOOG has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. KeyCorp dropped their target price on Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Citigroup reaffirmed a “sell” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a “negative” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and five have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $203.94.

About Alphabet

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.