Hilltop Wealth Advisors LLC Acquires 12,950 Shares of Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Hilltop Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 611.4% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 15,068 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,950 shares during the quarter. Alphabet accounts for about 1.9% of Hilltop Wealth Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 16th biggest holding. Hilltop Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $3,663,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Truist Financial Corp grew its holdings in Alphabet by 2.3% during the second quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 2,546,012 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $448,684,000 after purchasing an additional 56,295 shares during the period. Alaethes Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Alaethes Wealth LLC now owns 7,646 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,182,000 after buying an additional 84 shares during the last quarter. Moment Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.3% during the 2nd quarter. Moment Partners LLC now owns 5,896 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,039,000 after acquiring an additional 504 shares during the period. Welch Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 4.0% during the 2nd quarter. Welch Group LLC now owns 64,262 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $11,325,000 after acquiring an additional 2,467 shares during the period. Finally, Brooktree Capital Management purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the 2nd quarter worth about $352,000. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $308.19, for a total transaction of $184,914.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 3,916 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,206,872.04. This trade represents a 13.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $312.30, for a total transaction of $867,569.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 8,962 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,798,832.60. This trade represents a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 192,687 shares of company stock worth $56,255,711. 11.64% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $315.15 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $328.83. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.80 trillion, a PE ratio of 31.08, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.73 and a beta of 1.07. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $301.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $243.51.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The firm had revenue of $102.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 35.00%. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 8th were paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.28%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on GOOGL. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $240.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 5th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $365.00 price target (up previously from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. China Renaissance upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $207.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $270.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 20th. Finally, Citizens Jmp lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-one have assigned a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $317.76.

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.