Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Sells 2,500 Shares of Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System trimmed its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 0.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 477,600 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 2,500 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises about 1.9% of Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest holding. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $116,105,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Alphabet by 1.3% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 516,559,609 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $91,033,300,000 after buying an additional 6,733,278 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $40,524,841,000 after acquiring an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Alphabet by 3.1% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 141,615,284 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $24,857,017,000 after acquiring an additional 4,224,497 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Alphabet in the 2nd quarter valued at $21,944,208,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,151,820 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,780,875,000 after purchasing an additional 503,306 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.8%

Alphabet stock opened at $330.00 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $340.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 1.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.98 trillion, a P/E ratio of 32.54, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $311.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $254.85.

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

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 8th were issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.28%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total value of $5,614,173.81. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at $13,531,453.08. The trade was a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 15th. The shares were 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 directly owned 8,962 shares in the company, valued at $2,798,832.60. The trade was a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 189,909 shares of company stock valued at $57,927,282 over the last ninety days. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Alphabet News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Big AI monetization wins — Apple’s decision to build next‑gen Siri on Google’s Gemini (a central catalyst behind Alphabet topping a ~$4 trillion valuation) implies licensing revenue and much broader Gemini distribution, which supports revenue and margins. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst backing — recent upgrades and a higher price target (e.g., Bank of America raised its GOOGL target) are propping sentiment and provide near‑term buy‑side support. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: New commercial partnerships — Google announced a Woolworths pilot to add agentic AI to its Olive chatbot in Australia, expanding potential retail use cases and distribution for Google’s AI services. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Competitive positioning — DeepMind leadership and comments that Chinese models are “months” behind support Alphabet’s technical edge, but competition remains intense and will keep investment cycles high. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Antitrust fallout — Google asked a judge to defer an order forcing it to share search data while it appeals a ruling that found an illegal monopoly in search; ongoing remedies or eventual enforcement could materially affect the core search business and ad economics. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Copyright litigation risk — major publishers are seeking to join a class action alleging Google used copyrighted material to train its AI, creating potential licensing costs, damages or restrictions on training data. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Infrastructure headwinds — Google warns U.S. transmission system constraints are slowing data‑center hookups and could raise capex and delay cloud/AI capacity expansion, pressuring near‑term margins. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — a disclosed director sale (600 shares) is small but adds to mixed sentiment amid other headwinds. Read More.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $300.00 price target (up from $265.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, October 27th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Alphabet from $270.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. President Capital upped their price target on Alphabet from $258.00 to $323.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 6th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $225.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Melius Research boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $255.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 25th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have given a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $326.31.

Alphabet Company 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.