Atwood & Palmer Inc. Has $3.87 Million Stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Atwood & Palmer Inc. boosted its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 6.6% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 25,019 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,550 shares during the period. Atwood & Palmer Inc.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $3,869,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. Compass Planning Associates Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. PayPay Securities Corp boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 36.1% in the 4th quarter. PayPay Securities Corp now owns 245 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after purchasing an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Navigoe LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $51,000. Finally, Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $53,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GOOGL. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. KeyCorp raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. Westpark Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Wedbush set a $190.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 17th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have issued a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $199.75.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $168.71, for a total transaction of $5,483,075.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,587,696 shares in the company, valued at $436,570,192.16. The trade was a 1.24% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 11,764 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.84, for a total value of $1,962,705.76. Following the sale, the insider now owns 49,037 shares in the company, valued at $8,181,333.08. The trade was a 19.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 195,570 shares of company stock valued at $32,003,532 in the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $177.35 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $161.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $174.51. Alphabet Inc. has a 12-month low of $140.53 and a 12-month high of $207.05. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The company has a market cap of $2.15 trillion, a P/E ratio of 22.03, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly 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 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.89 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.47%. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

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.