Mawer Investment Management Ltd. Lowers Stock Holdings in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Mawer Investment Management Ltd. reduced its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 35.8% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 22,174 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 12,386 shares during the quarter. Mawer Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $5,390,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of GOOGL. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the second quarter worth approximately $31,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at $53,000. Corsicana & Co. bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at $54,000. Sellwood Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at $63,000. Finally, Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC raised its position in Alphabet by 37.9% in the 2nd quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 324 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud reported a 48% year‑over‑year revenue surge, highlighting strong enterprise demand and accelerating monetization of AI — a major fundamental tailwind for long‑term revenue growth. Google (GOOGL) Cloud Revenue Just Surged 48% And May Have Delivered Knockout Blow To OpenAI
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive — a recent note set a $348 price target for Google, signaling analyst confidence that the pullback could be temporary and implying meaningful upside from current levels. Analysts Set $348 Target for Google After February Dip
• Positive Sentiment: DZ Bank reiterated a “buy” rating, adding institutional endorsement to the view that Alphabet’s AI and cloud investments justify a buy‑and‑hold stance. Alphabet C: DZ Bank Reiterates Its ‘Buy’ Rating
• Neutral Sentiment: MarketBeat frames the recent share pullback as a potential buying opportunity: fundamentals (ad/search strength, cloud momentum, Gemini user growth) remain intact, but technical/support levels near $300–$280 will be watched for confirmation. Alphabet’s Pullback: A Second Chance for Long-Term Investors?
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet leadership (CEO Sundar Pichai) is scheduled to attend a major AI summit in India alongside other industry CEOs — visibility at the event supports long‑term strategic positioning but is unlikely to move near‑term stock direction by itself. Huang and Pichai among tech CEOs heading to India for major AI summit in a key market
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data in February is noisy/ambiguous (reported as zero/inconsistent), so there’s no clear sign that a significant short‑squeeze dynamic is influencing today’s move.
• Negative Sentiment: U.K. officials announced tougher online‑safety rules aimed at protecting children that could increase compliance costs and constrain how chatbots and AI products are deployed in Europe — a regulatory risk for AI product rollout and monetization. AI chatbot firms face stricter regulation in online safety laws protecting children in the UK
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive product launches (e.g., Claude Cowork) have been cited in some coverage as a short‑term headwind for sentiment, dragging shares as investors assess market share and monetization risks for Gemini vs. rival models. 1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Investors Are Buying on the Dip

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,244,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $720,914,730.12. This represents a 1.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 2,064,308 shares of company stock valued at $104,383,469. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Phillip Securities upgraded Alphabet from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Wedbush increased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $360.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Pivotal Research raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. HSBC upped their target price on Alphabet from $335.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 2nd. Finally, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce raised their target price on Alphabet to $315.00 in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $361.64.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOGL opened at $305.72 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $3.70 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.28, a P/E/G ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 1.09. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $321.03 and a 200-day moving average price of $276.31. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $349.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 2.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. Sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 7.77%.

About Alphabet

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.