CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC Sells 583,013 Shares of Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC trimmed its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 8.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 6,600,946 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 583,013 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for about 2.7% of CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC owned approximately 0.05% of Alphabet worth $1,604,690,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. Griffin Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Alphabet by 13.9% in the 3rd quarter. Griffin Asset Management Inc. now owns 58,731 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $14,277,000 after purchasing an additional 7,180 shares during the last quarter. Sovran Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 23.6% in the third quarter. Sovran Advisors LLC now owns 22,219 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $5,401,000 after buying an additional 4,241 shares during the period. Birchcreek Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% in the second quarter. Birchcreek Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,028 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,415,000 after buying an additional 223 shares during the period. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. grew its position in Alphabet by 4.7% during the second quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. now owns 1,457,732 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $256,896,000 after buying an additional 65,439 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wright Investors Service Inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 21.2% during the third quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. now owns 50,064 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,171,000 after acquiring an additional 8,746 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on GOOGL. Pivotal Research upped their price target on Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Wall Street Zen cut Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Alphabet from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have issued a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $367.18.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 955 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $298.00, for a total transaction of $284,590.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 9,918 shares in the company, valued at $2,955,564. This trade represents a 8.78% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.41, for a total transaction of $318,580.50. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 4,631 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,405,091.71. This represents a 18.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 2,110,165 shares of company stock worth $118,134,117 in the last quarter. 11.64% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Top AI and strategy hires strengthen DeepMind execution — Jasjeet Sekhon, Bridgewater’s chief scientist, is joining Google’s DeepMind as chief strategy officer, boosting AI talent and strategy depth that supports product leadership and monetization opportunities. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Cloud/security M&A expands enterprise angle — Alphabet’s acquisition of Wiz strengthens Google Cloud’s security stack, a key competitive lever vs. AWS/Azure and a driver of higher-margin, enterprise revenue. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Defense relationships could open government revenue paths — reporting says Google has rebuilt ties with the Pentagon, which could translate to lucrative contracts if political headwinds remain manageable. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: AI product momentum pressures rivals — Google’s Stitch redesign (AI → UI generation) is already rattling competitors like Adobe, signaling product strength that could help user growth and ad/cloud adoption. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Regulatory concession may reduce UK friction — Google said it will build search controls allowing sites to opt out of generative-AI features, a move that could blunt UK CMA concerns but may limit feature reach. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Supply-chain / infrastructure sourcing discussions — Google is in talks with Chinese firms for data-center liquid-cooling equipment; could reduce capex cost or invite scrutiny depending on geopolitics. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Large planned capex raises near-term margin and valuation questions — Alphabet’s plan to invest up to ~$185B by 2026 and higher AI-driven capex fuels concerns about margin pressure and whether current P/E already prices in that spending. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation debate persists despite upbeat fundamentals — analysts remain optimistic, but some write-ups flag Alphabet’s ~25–29x P/E and rising capex as limiting near-term upside vs. expectations. Article Title

Alphabet Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $307.69 on Thursday. 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 stock has a market cap of $3.72 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.46, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.10. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $349.00. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $318.54 and a 200-day simple moving average of $291.85.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $111.24 billion. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

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

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.