Emerald Advisors LLC Acquires 622 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Emerald Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 14.2% in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 5,002 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 622 shares during the quarter. Emerald Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $774,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 9.8% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $47,025,322,000 after buying an additional 22,100,902 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $18,672,198,000 after buying an additional 7,574,417 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 16.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,635,878,000 after buying an additional 10,037,685 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 17.0% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,178,470,000 after buying an additional 10,135,430 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently commented on GOOGL shares. BMO Capital Markets restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective (down previously from $230.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Alphabet from $225.00 to $192.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Mizuho lowered their target price on Alphabet from $230.00 to $205.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. Westpark Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $199.95.

Alphabet Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $179.08 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $140.53 and a 52-week high of $207.05. The company has a market capitalization of $2.17 trillion, a P/E ratio of 19.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $168.70 and a 200 day simple moving average of $173.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a current ratio of 1.77.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 30.86% and a return on equity of 34.54%. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.89 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th were issued a $0.21 dividend. This is a boost from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.47%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 10,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.00, for a total value of $1,837,500.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 261,966 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,844,050. This represents a 3.85% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.87, for a total transaction of $5,553,275.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,620,196 shares in the company, valued at approximately $447,712,890.52. This represents a 1.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 215,643 shares of company stock valued at $36,330,928 in the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.