EP Wealth Advisors LLC Cuts Stock Holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

EP Wealth Advisors LLC cut its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Free Report) by 9.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 220,606 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 22,181 shares during the quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC's holdings in Alphabet were worth $42,012,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in GOOG. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.8% during the 4th quarter. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC now owns 16,248 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $3,094,000 after purchasing an additional 1,041 shares during the last quarter. Harvest Investment Services LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. Harvest Investment Services LLC now owns 4,329 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $824,000 after acquiring an additional 138 shares in the last quarter. North Forty Two & Co. purchased a new position in Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at about $281,000. SageView Advisory Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 140.6% in the fourth quarter. SageView Advisory Group LLC now owns 14,734 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $2,806,000 after buying an additional 8,610 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Requisite Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $927,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 2,824 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $187.43, for a total value of $529,302.32. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,024 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,815,948.32. The trade was a 15.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total value of $5,153,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,717,696 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. The trade was a 1.18 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 146,824 shares of company stock valued at $25,086,603 over the last 90 days. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GOOG opened at $165.20 on Wednesday. The firm's 50-day moving average price is $161.97 and its 200-day moving average price is $177.17. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $142.66 and a 52-week high of $208.70. The company has a market cap of $2.00 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.52, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.89 EPS. Alphabet's revenue was up 12.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. This is a boost from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.51%. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 9.36%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Scotiabank lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $200.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 21st. Susquehanna restated a "positive" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday. KeyCorp decreased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $203.94.

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.

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