Hartford Investment Management Co. Decreases Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• Hartford Investment Management Co. trimmed its Alphabet stake by 1.3% in the fourth quarter, selling 4,299 shares and ending with 336,134 shares valued at about $105.2 million.
• Alphabet is benefiting from a wave of positive business developments, including surging Google Cloud demand, a major AI data center partnership with Blackstone, and bullish analyst commentary that reaffirmed or raised price targets.
• The company also reported strong recent fundamentals, with the latest quarter showing EPS of $5.11 versus $2.64 expected and revenue of $109.9 billion, while Alphabet raised its quarterly dividend to $0.22 per share.

Hartford Investment Management Co. decreased its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 1.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 336,134 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 4,299 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for about 3.1% of Hartford Investment Management Co.'s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position. Hartford Investment Management Co.'s holdings in Alphabet were worth $105,210,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Alphabet by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $165,567,398,000 after acquiring an additional 12,531,695 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in Alphabet by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $40,524,841,000 after acquiring an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Capital World Investors raised its stake in Alphabet by 28.0% during the 3rd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 53,107,572 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $12,910,542,000 after acquiring an additional 11,605,785 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in Alphabet by 15.7% during the 3rd quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 50,732,476 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $12,333,076,000 after acquiring an additional 6,874,381 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in Alphabet by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 45,186,112 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $10,984,744,000 after acquiring an additional 1,034,292 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud reported standout Q1’26 results, with revenue up 63% to $20 billion, a 32.9% margin, and a backlog that reached $462 billion, suggesting strong demand and improving profitability. GOOGL Rides on Surging Google Cloud Demand: More Upside Ahead?
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet and Blackstone announced a partnership to build 500MW of U.S. data center capacity by 2027, underscoring Alphabet’s push to monetize TPU-powered AI compute as a service. Google and Blackstone partner on TPU-powered data centre capacity
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s buy rating was reaffirmed by Barclays, adding to the bullish analyst tone around the stock. Alphabet Class A (GOOGL) Gets a Buy from Cantor Fitzgerald
• Positive Sentiment: Reuters reported that EQT partnered with Google Cloud to accelerate AI adoption across more than 300 portfolio companies, reinforcing Alphabet’s enterprise AI momentum. Private equity firm EQT partners with Google Cloud for AI rollout
• Neutral Sentiment: Waymo continued expanding its robotaxi fleet with lower-cost vehicles and new rider access, which supports Alphabet’s optionality in autonomous driving but is not an immediate earnings driver. Waymo opens Ojai robotaxis to select riders as company aims to lower cost of fleet expansion
• Negative Sentiment: Alphabet is facing fresh reputational and legal pressure after U.S. prosecutors charged a Google engineer in a Polymarket insider-trading case, and an Indian court ruling raised trademark-related ad risk. Indian court ruling on Google keyword ads could reshape online advertising
• Negative Sentiment: Some commentary also suggested Alphabet could face pressure as AI rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic raise larger funding war chests, keeping competition concerns in focus. Anthropic Leapfrogs OpenAI In Valuation. But Here's One Thing To Know.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.65, for a total value of $348,232.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,581 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,187,638.65. This trade represents a 22.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,993 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.89, for a total transaction of $2,481,078.77. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 51,808 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $14,293,309.12. This trade represents a 14.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 226,481 shares of company stock valued at $27,422,061 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 11.61% of the company's stock.

Alphabet Trading Down 2.5%

GOOGL stock opened at $380.34 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $345.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $324.91. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $162.00 and a fifty-two week high of $408.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.92 and a current ratio of 1.92. The firm has a market cap of $4.61 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.26.

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 for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.64 by $2.47. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. The firm had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.98 billion. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 15th. Investors of record on Monday, June 8th will be issued a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. This is a boost from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 8th. Alphabet's payout ratio is 6.41%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have commented on GOOGL shares. Susquehanna restated a "positive" rating and set a $460.00 target price (up from $400.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $300.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Evercore lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. DZ Bank reiterated a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, February 16th. Finally, CICC Research lifted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $388.00 to $407.91 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $412.94.

Alphabet 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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