Smith Group Asset Management LLC Cuts Stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Smith Group Asset Management LLC trimmed its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 4.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 13,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 602 shares during the quarter. Smith Group Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $2,610,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in GOOG. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 114,802,133 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $19,193,768,000 after acquiring an additional 5,655,022 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 10.3% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 33,334,082 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,573,125,000 after purchasing an additional 3,113,395 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 65.9% in the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 6,294,332 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,052,349,000 after purchasing an additional 2,500,621 shares during the period. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 182.1% in the 3rd quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund now owns 2,526,055 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $422,331,000 after purchasing an additional 1,630,701 shares during the period. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.1% in the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 15,424,324 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,578,793,000 after purchasing an additional 1,291,274 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOG has been the topic of several recent research reports. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday. Phillip Securities upgraded shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Citizens Jmp cut shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $209.13.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 37,134 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.02, for a total transaction of $6,870,532.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 282,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $52,329,576.64. The trade was a 11.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,834 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $197.55, for a total transaction of $559,856.70. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 20,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,085,531.55. The trade was a 12.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 121,630 shares of company stock valued at $22,258,133. 12.99% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.5 %

GOOG stock opened at $205.60 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $189.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $175.54. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $131.55 and a fifty-two week high of $207.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a current ratio of 1.95. The firm has a market cap of $2.52 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 0.99.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. The firm had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $86.39 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.55 earnings per share. Alphabet’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.