WBI Investments LLC Has $1.80 Million Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

WBI Investments LLC decreased its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 32.8% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 7,409 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 3,613 shares during the period. WBI Investments LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $1,801,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Delta Asset Management LLC TN increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Delta Asset Management LLC TN now owns 6,153 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,496,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Second Line Capital LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Second Line Capital LLC now owns 4,417 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,074,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Matisse Capital raised its position in Alphabet by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Matisse Capital now owns 14,814 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $3,601,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Rialto Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 1.7% in the third quarter. Rialto Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,226 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $541,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hodges Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% during the third quarter. Hodges Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,963 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,693,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: MarketBeat highlights Alphabet as a relative leader among mega‑cap tech names — cites consecutive earnings beats, Google Cloud strength and outperformance vs. peers, supporting investor confidence in execution. 2 Tech Giants Holding Their Ground While the Market Slides
• Positive Sentiment: DeepMind hires Jasjeet Sekhon (Bridgewater’s chief scientist) as chief strategy officer — a high‑profile AI hire that strengthens DeepMind’s talent and strategy as Alphabet pushes AI leadership. Exclusive: Bridgewater’s chief scientist Sekhon to join Google’s DeepMind AI unit
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s Wiz acquisition bolsters Google Cloud security capabilities — strengthens competitive positioning vs. AWS/Azure and supports Cloud revenue growth narratives. GOOGL’s Wiz Buyout Expands Cloud Security Portfolio: What’s Ahead?
• Positive Sentiment: Google is implementing an AI opt‑out for websites to address UK competition concerns — a regulatory concession that should reduce policy risk around generative search features. Google to allow AI opt-out to ease UK competition concerns
• Positive Sentiment: Google’s Stitch redesign and other product moves underline AI-driven product expansion (also pressuring competitors like Adobe), reinforcing the TAM growth story for Alphabet’s software/AI stack. Adobe Stock Drops After Google’s Stitch Redesign
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet paid a small dividend on March 16 ($0.21/share) — a shareholder‑friendly move that can support investor sentiment. Google stock just paid dividends; here’s how much investors received
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider selling disclosed: CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares (~$10.0M) and Director John Hennessy sold 1,050 shares — notable transactions but small relative to their holdings; watch for pattern rather than one‑off sales. Sundar Pichai insider sale John L. Hennessy insider sale
• Neutral Sentiment: Short interest data appears anomalous (reports of zero/NaN) and is not signaling a clear short‑squeeze or build‑up at present.
• Negative Sentiment: Broader investor worry over massive hyperscaler AI spending and whether returns justify it — analysts flag $410B+ hyperscaler capex and growing margins pressure, which weighs on tech multiples including Alphabet. Forget the War Headlines: This Is the Real Reason Tech Stocks Are Struggling
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation concerns persist as analysts debate whether Alphabet’s higher capex and margin pressure justify its current P/E — this keeps upside constrained despite operational wins. How The Alphabet (GOOGL) Investment Story Is Shifting With AI Deals And Valuation Questions

Alphabet Stock Down 1.0%

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $307.69 on Thursday. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $349.00. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $318.54 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $291.85. The stock has a market cap of $3.72 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.46, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11.

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 business had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th were issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total transaction of $35,060,852.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $301.45, for a total transaction of $14,341,182.30. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 13,227 shares in the company, valued at $3,987,279.15. This trade represents a 78.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 2,110,165 shares of company stock valued at $118,134,117 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Arete Research lifted their price target on Alphabet from $380.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Moffett Nathanson boosted their target price on Alphabet from $305.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. DZ Bank reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, February 16th. Roth Mkm upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $365.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $375.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, December 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have issued a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $367.18.

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.