Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Stake Lowered by Vision Capital Management Inc.

Key Points

• Vision Capital Management cut its stake in Alphabet by 3.6% in Q4, selling 4,517 shares and now owning 120,506 shares worth $37.72 million (4.5% of the fund and its 5th-largest holding).
• Alphabet beat Q1 estimates with EPS of $5.11 vs. $2.64 expected and revenue of $109.9B, prompting multiple analyst price-target increases and a consensus "Moderate Buy" with an average target around $405.94.
• Alphabet raised its quarterly dividend to $0.22 (annualized $0.88) for a roughly 0.2% yield, with record date June 8 and payment on June 15.

Vision Capital Management Inc. cut its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 3.6% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 120,506 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 4,517 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up 4.5% of Vision Capital Management Inc.'s portfolio, making the stock its 5th biggest holding. Vision Capital Management Inc.'s holdings in Alphabet were worth $37,718,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of GOOGL. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $20,886,000 after purchasing an additional 4,110 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.5% in the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $2,826,000 after buying an additional 506 shares in the last quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY increased its holdings in Alphabet by 17.6% in the second quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY now owns 3,888 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $685,000 after buying an additional 581 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 11.2% in the second quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 485,486 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $85,557,000 after buying an additional 48,805 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank raised its position in Alphabet by 6.9% during the second quarter. United Bank now owns 48,204 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $8,495,000 after acquiring an additional 3,120 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Anthropic reportedly committed to a multiyear, very large cloud deal with Google — a reported $200 billion spend over five years would lock in massive Google Cloud revenue and capacity demand. Anthropic commits to spending $200 billion on Google's cloud and chips, The Information reports
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street momentum: multiple firms raised price targets and reaffirmed buy ratings after strong Q1 (Daiwa, President Capital, New Street, China Renaissance, Citizens/JMP and JPMorgan reaffirmations), supporting upside expectations. Daiwa Securities adjusts price target on Alphabet to $445
• Positive Sentiment: Strategic product/compute move: reports that Google will sell TPUs directly point to a push to capture more AI-infrastructure economics (good for Google Cloud revenue and a competitive play versus NVIDIA). This underpins investor enthusiasm about verticalizing AI stack revenue. Google Moves to Sell TPUs Directly: A Major Shift That Might Pressure NVIDIA's AI Compute Dominance
• Positive Sentiment: Capital markets vote of confidence: Alphabet’s large euro bond sale saw strong demand, easing funding for its AI capex push and signaling solid investor appetite for its balance-sheet strategy. Alphabet taps euro bond market with six-tranche offering
• Positive Sentiment: Operational traction: multiple write-ups note Google Cloud growth outpacing competitors and a rising cloud backlog — supports durable revenue growth above advertising. Alphabet's Google Cloud growth outpaces AWS and Azure
• Neutral Sentiment: U.S. security reviews / stress tests: the U.S. government’s expanded access to unreleased models (including Google/DeepMind) for risk assessments increases scrutiny but could also accelerate standards that favor larger, compliant players. What we know about US stress tests of Google, xAI and Microsoft AI models
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/data-risk flag: a senior Google scientist warned EU proposals to force data-sharing with rivals (e.g., for search) could expose user data — this signals material regulatory risk to Google’s core search model and revenue if rules tighten. Top Google scientist says EU data measures pose privacy risk for users
• Negative Sentiment: Labor and reputational risks: DeepMind/Google AI staff in the UK have voted to unionize and are protesting military-related contracts — potential for workplace disruption and reputational/headline risk during a sensitive regulatory period. UK Google DeepMind employees vote to unionize over its AI military deals
• Negative Sentiment: Traffic-referral implications: Reach PLC reports a drop in digital revenue tied to weaker Google search/referral traffic — a reminder that changes to search/referral dynamics can affect publisher ecosystems (and could presage volatility in search-related monetization trends). Reach revenue falls as Google traffic slump continues to hit digital income
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst downgrade: Freedom Capital cut its rating to “hold,” a counterpoint to multiple buy/rating upgrades and a reminder some firms are taking profits or noting valuation/capex risks. Freedom Capital downgrade to hold (Zacks)

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on GOOGL. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $370.00 to $430.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Pivotal Research raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $410.00 to $420.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, April 10th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $420.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Freedom Capital downgraded shares of Alphabet from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $405.94.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $388.46 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.92, a quick ratio of 1.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $315.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $309.67. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.70 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.63, a PEG ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 1.26. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $147.84 and a 1-year high of $392.82.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.64 by $2.47. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.98 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 13.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. This is a positive change from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 8th. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is currently 6.41%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 617 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 10,093 shares in the company, valued at $2,923,235.59. This represents a 5.76% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,993 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.89, for a total value of $2,481,078.77. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 51,808 shares in the company, valued at $14,293,309.12. This trade represents a 14.79% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 158,553 shares of company stock valued at $47,951,856 in the last quarter. Insiders own 11.61% of the company's stock.

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.

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