CWA Asset Management Group LLC Grows Holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

CWA Asset Management Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 18.1% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 118,628 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 18,161 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up about 0.9% of CWA Asset Management Group LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 22nd largest position. CWA Asset Management Group LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $18,345,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its position in Alphabet by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 1,582 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $299,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Capital & Planning LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 34.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital & Planning LLC now owns 4,383 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $830,000 after purchasing an additional 1,119 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 50,132 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $9,490,000 after purchasing an additional 371 shares in the last quarter. Brighton Jones LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $20,886,000 after purchasing an additional 4,110 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA acquired a new stake in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $154,716,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the subject of several recent research reports. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Westpark Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Finally, Roth Mkm reissued a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have issued a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $199.75.

Alphabet Trading Down 3.9%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $166.64 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $164.77 and its 200 day moving average price is $174.71. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.02 trillion, a P/E ratio of 18.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year 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.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.89 EPS. Analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th were issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. This is a positive change from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 673 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total value of $104,537.09. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,303 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,377,014.99. The trade was a 4.21% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 11,764 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 49,037 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. Insiders sold a total of 228,070 shares of company stock worth $37,745,632 in the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is owned by 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.