Sunbelt Securities Inc. Decreases Holdings in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Sunbelt Securities Inc. decreased its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 5.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 38,175 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 2,195 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for approximately 0.8% of Sunbelt Securities Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 20th biggest holding. Sunbelt Securities Inc.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $11,949,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 12,531,695 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Alphabet by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 146,193,037 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $45,625,595,000 after buying an additional 2,666,676 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at $30,534,239,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in Alphabet by 4.9% during 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Price Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $368.48 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $4.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.92 and a quick ratio of 1.92. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $162.00 and a 1 year high of $408.61. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $367.04 and a two-hundred day moving average of $331.95.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.64 by $2.47. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $106.98 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. On average, research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 15th. Investors of record on Monday, June 8th were paid a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 8th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 6.71%.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet is being viewed as a major AI winner thanks to ongoing investment in AI infrastructure and data centers, which could support future cloud and AI revenue growth. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Reports that Berkshire Hathaway nearly tripled its Alphabet position may be seen as a strong vote of confidence from a major long-term investor. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Coverage emphasizing Alphabet’s strong earnings and expanding Google Cloud backlog supports the case for continued fundamental improvement. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet’s stock is drawing increased investor attention and analyst commentary, but these are mostly sentiment-driven mentions rather than new company-specific catalysts. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Noam Shazeer, a top Google DeepMind/Gemini AI leader, is leaving for OpenAI, underscoring the competitive AI talent war. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: John Jumper is also departing Google DeepMind for Anthropic, adding to concerns that Alphabet may be losing key AI researchers. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Waymo’s recall of nearly 3,900 robotaxis after construction-zone driving errors raises safety and regulatory concerns for Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle business. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: The UK ordering Google to improve search-ranking transparency highlights continued regulatory scrutiny over its core search business. Article Title

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on GOOGL shares. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $393.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, May 21st. Citigroup reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, May 4th. Dbs Bank raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $460.00 in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $395.00 to $465.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $413.13.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 617 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.63, for a total transaction of $178,701.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,923,235.59. The trade was a 5.76% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder 2019 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 87,475 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $23.75, for a total value of $2,077,531.25. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 160,516 shares of company stock valued at $7,344,604 over the last 90 days. 11.61% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Alphabet

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.