Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. Has $282.51 Million Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. lowered its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 3.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,162,121 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 39,734 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises approximately 2.6% of Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P.’s portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest position. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $282,512,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of GOOGL. Capital & Planning LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Capital & Planning LLC now owns 2,419 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $588,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares in the last quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC raised its stake in Alphabet by 4.7% during the third quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 10,172 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,473,000 after buying an additional 459 shares during the last quarter. Gunderson Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Alphabet in the third quarter worth $8,900,000. Barry Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 30.1% in the third quarter. Barry Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,145 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $521,000 after acquiring an additional 496 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NDVR Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 13.2% during the third quarter. NDVR Inc. now owns 4,091 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $995,000 after acquiring an additional 477 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Truist Financial set a $350.00 price target on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 5th. China Renaissance increased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $207.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, December 12th. Hsbc Global Res raised Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Finally, Citizens Jmp increased their target price on Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $326.31.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL opened at $330.00 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $311.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $254.85. The firm has a market cap of $3.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.54, a P/E/G ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $340.49.

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

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity

In other news, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total value of $5,614,173.81. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at $13,531,453.08. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.52, for a total value of $202,512.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 21,224 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,163,524.48. This represents a 2.75% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 189,909 shares of company stock worth $57,927,282. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

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.