Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Shares Down 2.5% on Insider Selling

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares were down 2.5% on Friday after an insider sold shares in the company. The stock traded as low as $320.15 and last traded at $323.10. Approximately 33,723,933 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 44% from the average daily volume of 23,343,650 shares. The stock had previously closed at $331.33.

Specifically, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $335.18, for a total value of $10,893,350.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,179,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $730,481,906.96. This represents a 1.47% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 933 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.55, for a total value of $314,001.15. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 9,916 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,337,229.80. The trade was a 8.60% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on GOOG. Pivotal Research restated a “buy” rating and set a $420.00 target price (up from $400.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “buy” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $330.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, December 1st. Finally, Loop Capital upgraded Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have given a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $343.47.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q4 beat: Alphabet reported higher?than?expected revenue and EPS, Google Cloud grew ~48% YoY and backlog jumped to roughly $240B — proof of strong AI demand underpinning long?term growth. Alphabet Crushes Earnings — MarketBeat
• Positive Sentiment: Product and ecosystem wins: Gemini adoption and enterprise traction (large token/API usage) are driving monetization across Search, YouTube and Cloud; Waymo is also using Google’s Genie?3 model for virtual training — signals that AI investments are translating into product advantage. Waymo Taps Google’s Genie 3 — TipRanks
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst view is broadly positive but mixed on valuation: several price?target raises and buy/overweight ratings highlight conviction in AI/cloud upside, while some firms flag a hold rating because of aggressive capex and near?term margin pressure. New Analyst Forecast $395 — QuiverQuant
• Neutral Sentiment: Corporate moves: Alphabet announced a small quarterly dividend and continues to convert AI investments into subscriptions and ad monetization — long?term positives, but limited near?term impact on share price.
• Negative Sentiment: CapEx shock: management guided roughly $175–185B in 2026 CapEx (nearly double 2025), which spooked investors because it pushes spending and capital intensity into the spotlight and raises near?term return uncertainty. That guidance is the primary reason shares fell today. Alphabet Resets the Bar for AI Spending — CNBC
• Negative Sentiment: Insider & fund selling: recent insider sales and public fund trimming (and some institutional position reductions) add selling pressure and amplify short?term downside risk. Stock Down on Insider Selling — AmericanBankingNews
• Negative Sentiment: Policy & reputational risks: a proposed bill to regulate data?center interconnection/charges and internal employee protests over government cloud contracts could raise operating costs or create reputational/headwind risks for data?center expansion. Power for the People Act S.3682 — QuiverQuant Google Workers Demand End to Cloud Services — NYTimes

Alphabet Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $3.90 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 1.75. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $322.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $271.38.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.59 by $0.23. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The business had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.15 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.28%.

Institutional Trading of Alphabet

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 421,013,782 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $132,114,125,000 after purchasing an additional 8,128,234 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in Alphabet by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 188,914,125 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $33,511,477,000 after buying an additional 2,428,266 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Alphabet by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 107,760,033 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,022,926,000 after buying an additional 441,177 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 8.6% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 99,529,742 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $24,240,469,000 after acquiring an additional 7,904,434 shares during the period. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 5.8% in the third quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 40,032,291 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,749,864,000 after acquiring an additional 2,209,203 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.