Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management Has $24.21 Million Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• Empirical Financial Services (Empirical Wealth Management) trimmed its stake in Alphabet by 2.3% in Q4, selling 1,858 shares and holding 77,360 shares worth about $24.21 million.
• Alphabet beat Q4 expectations with EPS $2.82 vs. $2.57 est. and revenue $113.83B vs. $111.24B, paid a quarterly dividend of $0.21 (0.3% yield), and continues to show strong Google Cloud momentum.
• Wall Street sentiment is bullish with multiple price‑target upgrades (average target ~$367.33) and mostly Buy ratings, while insiders have sold ~2.07M shares (~$104.7M) in the past three months and institutions own ~40% of the stock.

Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management decreased its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 2.3% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 77,360 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 1,858 shares during the period. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management's holdings in Alphabet were worth $24,214,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. PMV Capital Advisers LLC bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $38,000. iSAM Funds UK Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $53,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $53,000. Corsicana & Co. bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Finally, Sellwood Investment Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $63,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Alphabet Stock Up 0.4%

Shares of GOOGL opened at $318.49 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.85 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.46, a PEG ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.12. 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 business's fifty day moving average price is $307.27 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $297.90. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $146.10 and a 52 week high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%. On average, analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th were paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a 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%.

More Alphabet News

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

GOOGL has been the topic of several analyst reports. Daiwa Securities Group upped their price objective on Alphabet from $333.00 to $380.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 10th. Argus upped their price objective on Alphabet from $365.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Arete Research upped their price objective on Alphabet from $380.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 11th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Alphabet from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Saturday, April 4th. Finally, Raymond James Financial upgraded Alphabet from a "moderate buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $367.33.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.41, for a total transaction of $318,580.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 4,631 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,405,091.71. This represents a 18.48% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 617 shares of the firm'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 transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,923,235.59. This represents a 5.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 2,069,344 shares of company stock worth $104,708,426 in the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GOOGL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report).

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.