Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Insider John Kent Walker Sells 47,574 Shares of Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) insider John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $301.45, for a total value of $14,341,182.30. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 13,227 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,987,279.15. The trade was a 78.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

John Kent Walker also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, December 30th, John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total transaction of $5,614,173.81.

Alphabet Stock Up 3.4%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL traded up $10.20 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $313.05. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 10,213,451 shares, compared to its average volume of 35,748,559. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $320.20 and its 200 day moving average price is $277.46. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $349.00. The company has a market capitalization of $3.79 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.83, a P/E/G ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 2.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. As a group, research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 7.77%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $165,567,398,000 after acquiring an additional 12,531,695 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in Alphabet by 1.8% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Alphabet by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 146,193,037 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $45,625,595,000 after purchasing an additional 2,666,676 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Alphabet in the 2nd quarter valued at about $21,944,208,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 4.9% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 69,108,183 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $21,630,861,000 after buying an additional 3,218,852 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google deepens commercial AI footprint with a new partnership to build AI tools with Sea Ltd for e?commerce and gaming — this expands Google Cloud’s addressable market in SEA and signals more enterprise demand for Google’s AI stack. Google, Shopee-owner Sea to develop AI tools
• Positive Sentiment: Product innovation: Google Gemini and Music-focused generative-AI features (also adopted by Apple) show AI features moving into mainstream consumer apps — supports user engagement and future monetization opportunities. Google Gemini, Apple add music-focused generative AI features
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud demand theme: coverage highlighting an “inference tsunami” (growing model deployment needs) and Google partner upgrades (Select-tier partners) point toward higher cloud/inference spend that could benefit Google Cloud revenue. An Inference Tsunami May Be Coming for Google Cloud
• Positive Sentiment: Institutional backing: recent 13F activity shows heavyweight investors (e.g., David Tepper boosting positions; Berkshire still holding GOOGL) — institutional support can stabilize shares over time. David Tepper goes big on Alphabet
• Neutral Sentiment: NVIDIA–Meta mega?deal and huge AI capex across hyperscalers underline intense competition for chips and talent — this validates AI demand but raises the bar for infrastructure investments (mixed for Alphabet). NVIDIA and Meta deepen their AI alliance
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: Alphabet exec John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares (~$14.3M) recently — a large disclosed sale that can weigh on sentiment even if not unusual for insiders. SEC filing – insider sale
• Negative Sentiment: Security/legal risk: three Silicon Valley engineers were indicted for allegedly stealing Google trade secrets and sending data to Iran — reputational, intellectual?property and potential litigation or security-cost implications. Three engineers charged stealing Google trade secrets
• Negative Sentiment: Investor rotation/AI sentiment: notable managers (e.g., Stanley Druckenmiller) sold several high-profile AI names in 13F filings — contributes to broader profit?taking pressure on AI/hyperscaler stocks. Druckenmiller dumped several AI stocks

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have issued reports on GOOGL shares. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 target price (up previously from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, December 1st. Wells Fargo & Company set a $354.00 price target on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $400.00 price objective (up previously from $325.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $375.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $365.86.

Alphabet Company 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.