Heartland Bank & Trust Co Has $6.97 Million Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Heartland Bank & Trust Co increased its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 16.7% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 45,083 shares of the information services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 6,444 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for 3.6% of Heartland Bank & Trust Co's investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest position. Heartland Bank & Trust Co's holdings in Alphabet were worth $6,972,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC grew its stake in Alphabet by 9.8% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 248,416,916 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $47,025,322,000 after buying an additional 22,100,902 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Alphabet during the 4th quarter worth approximately $24,383,677,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 98,638,127 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $18,672,198,000 after acquiring an additional 7,574,417 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors grew its position in Alphabet by 16.2% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,033,086 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $13,635,878,000 after acquiring an additional 10,037,685 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 17.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 69,616,854 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $13,178,470,000 after purchasing an additional 10,135,430 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on GOOGL. UBS Group set a $195.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a report on Friday, April 25th. JMP Securities reissued a "market perform" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, May 21st. Tigress Financial lifted their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Finally, Mizuho reduced their price target on Alphabet from $230.00 to $205.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have assigned a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $200.17.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.7%

GOOGL traded up $2.86 on Thursday, reaching $173.54. 31,662,209 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 30,836,780. The company has a market cap of $2.11 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.35, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.77 and a quick ratio of 1.77. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $165.45 and its 200-day moving average price is $174.58. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $140.53 and a 52-week high of $207.05.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a net margin of 30.86% and a return on equity of 34.54%. The business had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $89.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 9th were paid a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.48%. This is an increase from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet's payout ratio is 9.36%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 673 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total transaction of $104,537.09. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,303 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,377,014.99. This represents a 4.21% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 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 in the company, valued at approximately $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 216,306 shares of company stock valued at $35,782,927 in the last three months. Insiders own 11.64% of the company's stock.

Alphabet Company 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.