King Luther Capital Management Corp Has $596.60 Million Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

King Luther Capital Management Corp trimmed its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 2,449,591 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 12,086 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises 2.5% of King Luther Capital Management Corp’s holdings, making the stock its 8th biggest position. King Luther Capital Management Corp’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $596,598,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the second quarter worth about $4,298,572,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 8.6% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 99,529,742 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $24,240,469,000 after buying an additional 7,904,434 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 416,753,033 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $73,927,821,000 after buying an additional 5,182,111 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 73.5% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 9,808,152 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,388,775,000 after buying an additional 4,154,929 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Alphabet by 17,547.9% in the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,122,727 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $731,331,000 after acquiring an additional 4,099,366 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on GOOG. Scotiabank reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $400.00 target price (up from $375.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $250.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Phillip Securities raised shares of Alphabet from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 7th. KeyCorp set a $370.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have issued a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $343.90.

Alphabet Trading Up 3.7%

Shares of GOOG opened at $314.90 on Monday. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $142.66 and a twelve month high of $350.15. The company has a market cap of $3.81 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.13, a P/E/G ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $320.95 and its 200-day simple moving average is $280.08.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.59 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion during 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%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.15 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.77%.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.73, for a total value of $184,038.00. Following the sale, the director owned 20,624 shares in the company, valued at $6,325,999.52. This trade represents a 2.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $301.45, for a total value of $14,341,182.30. Following the sale, the insider owned 13,227 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,987,279.15. This trade represents a 78.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock valued at $119,145,289. Company insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and brokers have raised price targets and highlighted AI/cloud upside (UBS, Canaccord), citing Gemini adoption and generative‑AI capex that could add meaningful cloud revenue. UBS generative AI capex note
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet committed to a major $15B America‑India Connect initiative and announced partnerships (Zillow, Sea) that expand Gemini/Cloud into verticals — positive for long‑term cloud/ads monetization and market reach. America-India Connect announcement
• Positive Sentiment: Notable institutional buying from hedge funds (e.g., Appaloosa/Tepper, Altimeter, Viking) signals conviction in Alphabet’s AI/Cloud thesis and can support the stock through execution milestones. Appaloosa increases stake
• Neutral Sentiment: Product demos (Gemini AI coach, music features) and consumer launches (Pixel device with AI features) improve user engagement and positioning but are not immediate revenue drivers. Gemini demo on CNBC
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data for February shows anomalies (zeros/NaN) and provides no clear bearish signal at present; treat the statistic cautiously until reconciled.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: senior execs disclosed sizable sales (Sundar Pichai, John Kent Walker), which markets often view as a modest near‑term negative signal despite normal tax/liquidity reasons. Pichai sale filing Walker sale filing
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/IP risk: prosecutors have charged engineers in an alleged scheme to steal Google trade secrets and pass files abroad — reputational and security concerns that could invite regulatory scrutiny. Trade-secrets indictment
• Negative Sentiment: Execution/supply risks: DeepMind’s CEO warned that memory‑chip shortages constrain agentic AI research/deployment, which could slow rollout timing or raise costs for compute‑intensive initiatives. DeepMind chip shortage comments
• Negative Sentiment: Several institutional investors disclosed trims (Pershing Square, Longview, others). Broad portfolio rebalancing can weigh on near‑term sentiment even if longer‑term AI momentum remains. Pershing Square trim

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.