Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Stake Trimmed by Banque Pictet & Cie SA

Key Points

• Banque Pictet & Cie SA trimmed its Alphabet stake by 26.9% in Q4, selling 625,748 shares and leaving 1,697,952 shares worth $531,459,000 (Alphabet is 3.1% of the firm's portfolio and its 4th largest holding).
• Significant insider and major-shareholder selling recently: John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares (about $14.34M) and 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares, with insiders totaling ~2,069,344 shares sold (~$104.7M) over the past 90 days.
• Fundamentals and Wall Street view remain positive: Alphabet beat Q4 EPS and revenue estimates, reports strong Google Cloud growth, pays a $0.21 quarterly dividend (0.3% yield), and carries an average analyst target of $367.33 with a majority Buy/Strong Buy consensus.

Banque Pictet & Cie SA cut its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 26.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,697,952 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 625,748 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises 3.1% of Banque Pictet & Cie SA's portfolio, making the stock its 4th largest holding. Banque Pictet & Cie SA's holdings in Alphabet were worth $531,459,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. PMV Capital Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the 4th quarter worth $38,000. iSAM Funds UK Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at about $53,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter worth about $53,000. Corsicana & Co. bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter worth about $54,000. Finally, Sellwood Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter worth about $63,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other news, insider John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $301.45, for a total transaction of $14,341,182.30. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 13,227 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,987,279.15. This represents a 78.25% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total transaction of $35,060,852.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 2,069,344 shares of company stock valued at $104,708,426 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 11.64% of the company's stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $318.49 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $3.85 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.46, a PEG ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.12. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $146.10 and a 1 year high of $349.00. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $307.27 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $297.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 2.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 9th were given a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.77%.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Expanded Google–Intel AI infrastructure partnership boosts visibility for Google Cloud capacity and lowers execution risk for AI workloads hosted on Google’s platform. Investors view deeper Intel ties as supportive of sustained cloud/AI demand. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Broadcom–Google/Anthropic TPU and networking deals lock in multi‑year supply for Google’s custom AI racks, strengthening Alphabet’s hardware stack and third‑party TPU offerings — a structural positive for Google Cloud inference/train economics. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud momentum: recent writeups highlight ~50% Q4 cloud growth, a large cloud backlog and heavy capex to expand TPU/data center capacity — the operating story supporting higher revenue visibility and margin improvement. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Project Glasswing and broader industry cybersecurity initiatives (including banks and big tech) reduce AI‑related operational risk for cloud providers and reinforce Google’s role in enterprise AI security cooperation. That should reassure enterprise customers. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support is increasing: Needham and Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated bullish ratings with elevated price targets, and William O'Neil reinstated a Buy — near‑term sentiment tailwind for the shares. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo geographic expansion (Nashville) and Wing/ DoorDash drone rollout (Atlanta) provide concrete commercialization updates for Alphabet’s non‑Search growth engines, supporting optionality beyond ads. Read More. / Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Coverage pieces and investor guides (Fool, MarketBeat) reiterate Alphabet’s long‑term AI/cloud story — helpful for sentiment but not new operational data. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Mentions of Alphabet’s stake in SpaceX and “hidden assets” offer valuation debate fodder; potential upside if monetized but uncertain timing. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Operational headwinds flagged for hyperscalers (community pushback, water/land/energy constraints) as some data‑center projects face delays or cancellations — a potential capex/expansion risk for cloud capacity plans. Read More.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an "overweight" rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $395.00 price objective (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, February 9th. Pivotal Research boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, China Renaissance upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $330.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $367.33.

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.

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