Gateway Investment Advisers LLC Decreases Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Gateway Investment Advisers LLC reduced its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 7.7% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 562,334 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 46,731 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises 1.1% of Gateway Investment Advisers LLC's investment portfolio, making the stock its 14th biggest position. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC's holdings in Alphabet were worth $99,100,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Alphabet during the first quarter worth about $4,317,606,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Alphabet by 16,993.2% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 16,062,457 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $2,483,898,000 after buying an additional 15,968,487 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $78,839,544,000 after purchasing an additional 14,307,345 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 307.6% during the first quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 10,302,644 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $1,593,201,000 after acquiring an additional 7,774,811 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $1,375,509,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently commented on GOOGL shares. Westpark Capital raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $196.00 to $201.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. DA Davidson boosted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $180.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 2nd. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have issued a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $224.51.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.0%

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $252.03 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $207.87 and a 200-day moving average of $179.73. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $253.99. The stock has a market cap of $3.05 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.84, a PEG ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a current ratio of 1.90.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.15 by $0.16. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%.The business had revenue of $96.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $93.60 billion. Equities analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 8th were paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 8.95%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.76, for a total transaction of $2,786,400.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 240,400 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $44,656,704. This represents a 5.87% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 23,820 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.70, for a total value of $4,637,754.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,999 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,371,905.30. This represents a 35.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 258,088 shares of company stock worth $52,405,304. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat's editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.