Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Stake Boosted by RWQ Financial Management Services Inc.

RWQ Financial Management Services Inc. raised its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 25.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 68,240 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 13,675 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up approximately 7.2% of RWQ Financial Management Services Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 4th biggest position. RWQ Financial Management Services Inc.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $16,589,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Brighton Jones LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $20,886,000 after acquiring an additional 4,110 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,826,000 after buying an additional 506 shares in the last quarter. Financiere des Professionnels Fonds d investissement inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 32.2% during the second quarter. Financiere des Professionnels Fonds d investissement inc. now owns 51,507 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,077,000 after acquiring an additional 12,547 shares during the period. Affiance Financial LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Affiance Financial LLC now owns 9,854 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,737,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the period. Finally, Park Capital Management LLC WI grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. Park Capital Management LLC WI now owns 6,005 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,058,000 after purchasing an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on GOOGL. CIBC increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet to $315.00 in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $365.00 price target (up previously from $320.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, January 5th. China Renaissance lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $207.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $290.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, December 12th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $326.31.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $330.00 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $3.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.54, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.08. 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 firm’s 50 day moving average price is $311.33 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $255.38.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share 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 business had revenue of $102.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $99.90 billion. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

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

Key Alphabet News

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.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $321.21, for a total transaction of $10,439,325.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,244,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $720,914,730.12. The trade was a 1.43% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the insider owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,531,453.08. This trade represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 189,909 shares of company stock valued at $57,927,282 over the last ninety days. 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.