Cullen Capital Management LLC Raises Holdings in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Cullen Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 23.3% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 10,601 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,003 shares during the quarter. Cullen Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $2,577,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 2nd quarter worth $31,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter worth about $53,000. Corsicana & Co. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter worth about $54,000. Sellwood Investment Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $63,000. Finally, Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 37.9% in the second quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 324 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $57,000 after buying an additional 89 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. Roth Mkm boosted their price target on Alphabet from $365.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, February 9th. New Street Research upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $330.00 to $380.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 10th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $270.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $363.10.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.73, for a total transaction of $184,038.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 20,624 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,325,999.52. This represents a 2.83% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Frances Arnold sold 102 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $34,680.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 18,307 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,224,380. This represents a 0.55% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 2,032,408 shares of company stock worth $94,926,707. Corporate insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Berkshire Hathaway kept its Alphabet stake while cutting Amazon — a high-profile endorsement of Alphabet’s cloud/AI strategy that investors view as a vote of confidence. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Strategic demand signal: India’s Adani Group plans a massive AI data-center investment with Google and others, implying future hyperscaler cloud demand in a large growth market. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Product roadmap: Google I/O set for May (expectations for AI glasses and other AI-driven consumer launches) provides a visible catalyst for new product monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Operational/ESG tailwind: a long-term geothermal PPA will supply Google’s Nevada operations, supporting data-center resilience and sustainability goals. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Waymo oversight: Waymo defended its use of remote-assistance workers to Congress, which clarifies operations but leaves regulatory attention intact. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Product refresh: Google introduced the $499 Pixel 10a with AI features — positive for device ecosystem but modest near-term revenue impact versus cloud/ads. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: Director John Hennessy sold 600 shares (small dollar amount relative to market cap) — noted by the market but not a material red flag. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: High-profile trimming: Terry Smith (Fundsmith) reportedly cut about half of his Alphabet position — a headline that can create short-term selling pressure or signal rotation. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Macro/strategy risk: Analysts and coverage flag near-term pullback due to Alphabet’s elevated AI/compute CapEx and broader megacap rotation; some pieces call the stock in correction territory. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Service reliability: a recent YouTube outage (tens of thousands affected) briefly tests trust in Google’s consumer platforms and could draw short-term media attention. Read More.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL stock opened at $303.33 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $320.40 and a two-hundred day moving average of $277.29. The firm has a market cap of $3.67 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.06, a P/E/G ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 1.09. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

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.