WD Rutherford LLC Sells 292 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

WD Rutherford LLC decreased its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 0.9% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 31,018 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 292 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises about 2.6% of WD Rutherford LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding. WD Rutherford LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $4,848,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. FMR LLC increased its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 22,100,902 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 8.3% in the fourth 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 purchasing an additional 7,574,417 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in Alphabet by 16.2% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $13,635,878,000 after purchasing an additional 10,037,685 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in Alphabet by 17.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $13,178,470,000 after purchasing an additional 10,135,430 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $178.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, April 25th. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st. Finally, Mizuho dropped 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. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have assigned a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $199.75.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $173.32 on Thursday. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The company has a current ratio of 1.77, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $164.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $174.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.10 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.32, a P/E/G ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.54% and a net margin of 30.86%. The firm had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th were given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.48%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.36%.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total transaction of $5,153,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 11,764 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.84, for a total value of $1,962,705.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 49,037 shares in the company, valued at $8,181,333.08. This represents a 19.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 195,570 shares of company stock worth $32,003,532. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.