Guidance Capital Inc. Sells 103 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Guidance Capital Inc. cut its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 2.4% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 4,135 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 103 shares during the period. Guidance Capital Inc.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $678,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $24,383,677,000. FMR LLC boosted its holdings 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 worth $47,025,322,000 after purchasing an additional 22,100,902 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 16,993.2% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,483,898,000 after acquiring an additional 15,968,487 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 17.0% during 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 acquiring an additional 10,135,430 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 16.2% during 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 acquiring an additional 10,037,685 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on GOOGL shares. Roth Capital upped their price target on Alphabet from $205.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on Alphabet from $189.00 to $191.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $218.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their target price on Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $211.32.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $192.58 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $176.29 and its 200-day simple moving average is $172.79. The company has a market cap of $2.34 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.51, a PEG ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. Alphabet Inc. has a 12-month low of $140.53 and a 12-month high of $207.05.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 8th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 8th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $178.52, for a total transaction of $5,801,900.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,559,892 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $456,991,919.84. The trade was a 1.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 18,566 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.76, for a total transaction of $3,448,820.16. Following the sale, the director directly owned 243,400 shares in the company, valued at $45,213,984. This trade represents a 7.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 249,409 shares of company stock worth $43,523,710. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Profile

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.