Aries Wealth Management Lowers Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Aries Wealth Management trimmed its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 8.3% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 5,057 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 460 shares during the quarter. Aries Wealth Management’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $897,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its stake in Alphabet by 580,897.4% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 135,087,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $23,963,208,000 after buying an additional 135,064,454 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the first quarter worth approximately $2,622,943,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Alphabet by 2.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $64,299,725,000 after buying an additional 9,687,855 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in Alphabet by 9.9% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,971,861,000 after buying an additional 9,243,959 shares during the period. Finally, Strs Ohio purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the first quarter worth approximately $369,713,000. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. KeyCorp set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 2nd. Roth Capital restated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Scotiabank restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $310.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Pivotal Research upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $245.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $244.68.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 953 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $241.20, for a total value of $229,863.60. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 17,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,171,312.80. This represents a 5.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,816 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $247.42, for a total transaction of $4,408,034.72. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 42,985 shares in the company, valued at $10,635,348.70. This represents a 29.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 243,372 shares of company stock valued at $55,110,740 over the last ninety days. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Trading Up 0.8%

GOOG opened at $253.79 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.07 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.03, a P/E/G ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.00. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $232.18 and its 200 day moving average price is $192.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.90 and a quick ratio of 1.90. Alphabet Inc. has a 12-month low of $142.66 and a 12-month high of $257.58.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $96.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $93.67 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 31.12% and a return on equity of 34.31%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Investors of record on Monday, September 8th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.95%.

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.