Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Shares Sold by Virtus Family Office LLC

Virtus Family Office LLC lessened its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 60.0% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 3,673 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 5,519 shares during the quarter. Virtus Family Office LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $893,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. acquired a new position in Alphabet in the second quarter valued at $31,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $53,000. Corsicana & Co. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $54,000. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 37.9% in the 2nd quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 324 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 89 shares during the period. Finally, S&T Bank PA increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 40.2% during the second quarter. S&T Bank PA now owns 345 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $61,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strategic cloud partnerships expanding addressable market — Google announced a deal with Sea Ltd to build AI tools for e?commerce and gaming, which supports Google Cloud revenue growth in Southeast Asia and demonstrates enterprise demand for its AI stack. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Product momentum — Google is rolling Gemini?powered, music?focused generative?AI features (also showing up at competitors), indicating faster consumer AI adoption that could boost engagement and future monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Institutional support & analyst upgrades — recent 13F activity and analyst price?target increases (and MarketBeat coverage) signal long?term investor conviction that can underpin the stock. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: AI infrastructure arms race — NVIDIA–Meta mega?deal and hyperscaler capex plans validate AI demand but raise competitive and capital?intensity questions for Google; this is demand?positive but increases the investment bar. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet exploring chip/partner strategies — WSJ reports Google is weighing ways to use its balance sheet to better compete with chip suppliers, a strategic move that could reduce long?run costs or distract management depending on execution. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — recent disclosed sales by CEO Sundar Pichai and senior exec John Kent Walker (multi?million dollar sales) can sap near?term sentiment even if routine for compensation/liquidity reasons. Read More. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Security/legal risk — indictment of three engineers accused of stealing Google trade secrets and sending data to Iran raises potential IP, litigation and reputational risks that investors will watch. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: AI rotation/profit?taking — some prominent managers have trimmed AI positions in recent 13F filings, which contributes to episodic pressure on hyperscaler multiples. Read More.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $312.30, for a total value of $867,569.40. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 8,962 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,798,832.60. This trade represents a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.30, for a total transaction of $10,637,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,211,872 shares in the company, valued at $723,945,705.60. The trade was a 1.45% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 2,112,482 shares of company stock valued at $119,145,289 over the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Canaccord Genuity Group set a $415.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Moffett Nathanson lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $305.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Wells Fargo & Company set a $354.00 price objective on Alphabet and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 price objective (up previously from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday, January 13th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada increased their target price on Alphabet from $375.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $365.86.

Alphabet Trading Up 4.0%

NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $314.98 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.81 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.14, a PEG ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a current ratio of 2.01. Alphabet Inc. has a one year low of $140.53 and a one year high of $349.00. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $320.32 and its 200 day moving average price is $278.30.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

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

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.