Brighton Jones LLC Buys 8,232 Shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Brighton Jones LLC grew its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 7.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 118,562 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,232 shares during the quarter. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $18,334,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Compass Planning Associates Inc bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. PayPay Securities Corp increased 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 worth $46,000 after acquiring an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth about $49,000. Navigoe LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth about $51,000. Finally, Prudent Man Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at about $53,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GOOGL has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. KeyCorp increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Westpark Capital reissued a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target 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. Roth Mkm reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $178.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Friday, April 25th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have given a buy rating and four have assigned 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.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $176.77 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $163.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.74. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $140.53 and a fifty-two week high of $207.05. The firm has a market cap of $2.15 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The firm had revenue of $76.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

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

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In related news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 10,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.00, for a total transaction of $1,837,500.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 261,966 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,844,050. This represents a 3.85% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 2nd. The shares were 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 directly owns 2,717,696 shares in the company, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. The trade was a 1.18% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 195,570 shares of company stock valued at $32,003,532 over the last 90 days. 11.64% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Company 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.