Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Has $34.25 Million Holdings in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 4.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 109,436 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 4,270 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for 1.4% of Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest holding. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $34,253,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Lifelong Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its position in Alphabet by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Lifelong Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 1,728 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $541,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. Quantum Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Quantum Financial Advisors LLC now owns 11,799 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $3,693,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Delta Asset Management LLC TN grew its position in Alphabet by 0.6% in the third quarter. Delta Asset Management LLC TN now owns 6,153 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,496,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Second Line Capital LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Second Line Capital LLC now owns 4,417 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,074,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wolff Wiese Magana LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC now owns 7,615 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,384,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts remain constructive — Wells Fargo kept an overweight rating (while trimming targets), and other outlets highlight Buy/Outperform views that point to meaningful upside from cloud/AI monetization. Wells Fargo Raised the PT on Alphabet Inc (GOOGL), Maintains a Buy Rating
• Positive Sentiment: Product/efficiency wins: Google’s Gemma 4 and the TurboQuant algorithm reduce model memory needs and improve on‑device/model efficiency — strengthens competitive moat and could lower operating costs for AI services. Google’s Gemma 4 brings AI superpowers to your device Google’s TurboQuant Breakthrough Just Rewrote the AI Playbook
• Positive Sentiment: Fundamental/earnings confidence: coverage from Zacks and others flags Alphabet’s earnings growth and price strength as reasons to watch the stock heading into earnings season. Earnings Growth & Price Strength Make Alphabet (GOOGL) a Stock to Watch
• Neutral Sentiment: Talent movement: Broadcom named Alphabet executive Amie Thuener as its next CFO — notable departure to monitor but not an immediate earnings event. Broadcom taps Alphabet executive Amie Thuener as next CFO
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory probe in Turkey: the Turkish Competition Board opened an investigation into Google’s advertising and billing practices — potential fines, business restrictions or remediation costs could hit ad revenue/operations in the region. Turkey launches investigation into Google over advertising, billing practices
• Negative Sentiment: Legal risk rises as Section 230 liability narrows: recent court losses for platforms (including YouTube/Google units) increase the probability of costly litigation and moderation compliance burdens. Meta, Google under attack as court cases bypass 30-year-old legal shield
• Negative Sentiment: Near‑term cash‑flow and capex concern: industry commentary warns that hyperscaler AI capex could push Google’s free cash flow toward zero next year — elevates execution and financing risk until monetization of AI investments scales. Semianalysis CEO: Google’s free cash flow will hit zero next year from AI capex
• Negative Sentiment: Operational/ESG risk from data‑center power strategy: reporting that hyperscalers (including Google) are building large natural‑gas plants to power AI centers raises reputational, regulatory and long‑term transition risks. AI companies are building huge natural gas plants to power data centers. What could go wrong?
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: an SEC filing shows a senior exec sold ~9k shares in late March — modest in dollar terms but can be read negatively by short‑term traders. Insider Selling: Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Insider Sells 8,993 Shares of Stock

Analyst Ratings Changes

GOOGL has been the subject of several analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $400.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, March 27th. Mizuho increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Alphabet from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Citigroup boosted their price target on Alphabet from $350.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price target (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have given a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $367.33.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 617 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.63, for a total transaction of $178,701.71. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,923,235.59. The trade was a 5.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.41, for a total value of $318,580.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 4,631 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,405,091.71. The trade was a 18.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 2,101,844 shares of company stock worth $115,147,751 in the last three months. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL opened at $295.77 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a current ratio of 2.01. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $309.29 and a 200-day simple moving average of $296.59. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $349.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.58 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.36, a P/E/G ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 1.12.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. On average, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th were issued 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, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.