Sunbelt Securities Inc. Sells 8,797 Shares of Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• Sunbelt Securities reduced its stake in Alphabet by 17.9% in Q3, selling 8,797 shares and leaving it with 40,370 shares (about 0.7% of its portfolio) valued at roughly $9.81 million.
• There has been notable insider selling: CAO Amie Thuener O'Toole sold 955 shares, while major holder 2017 Gp L.L.C. sold 1,845,308 shares (~$35.06M), and insiders have offloaded 2,076,615 shares worth about $107.8M in the last 90 days.
• Analysts remain largely positive, with multiple firms raising price targets (average target ~$367.18 and a "Moderate Buy" consensus), and Alphabet recently paid a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share.

Sunbelt Securities Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 17.9% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 40,370 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 8,797 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up approximately 0.7% of Sunbelt Securities Inc.'s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest position. Sunbelt Securities Inc.'s holdings in Alphabet were worth $9,814,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. bought a new stake in Alphabet in the 2nd quarter worth $31,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter valued at about $53,000. iSAM Funds UK Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter valued at about $53,000. Corsicana & Co. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the third quarter worth about $54,000. Finally, Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 37.9% during the second quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 324 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 955 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $298.00, for a total value of $284,590.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 9,918 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,955,564. This represents a 8.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 2,076,615 shares of company stock worth $107,809,111 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company's stock.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Wells Fargo and other analysts have moved upbeat on Alphabet, citing stronger AI and cloud positioning and raising price targets, supporting investor optimism about future revenue and compute advantage. Alphabet (GOOGL) Sees Optimistic Coverage From Analysts
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet paid its first 2026 dividend of $0.21 per share on March 16, a concrete cash return that can support demand from income-oriented investors. Google stock just paid dividends; here's how much investors received
• Positive Sentiment: Research houses continue to reiterate buy/overweight ratings (Needham reiterated a buy), reinforcing buy-side conviction and supporting price momentum. Alphabet's (GOOGL) Buy Rating Reiterated at Needham & Company LLC
• Positive Sentiment: Google procurement teams reportedly visited China to discuss buying liquid cooling gear from local suppliers — a sign of continued data‑center expansion and potential cost/efficiency gains for its cloud and AI compute footprint. Google in talks with China's Envicool, others to buy data centre cooling systems, sources say
• Neutral Sentiment: Multiple market write-ups (Zacks, Yahoo, Motley Fool summaries) note Alphabet as a trending/overperforming stock due to AI and cloud tailwinds, keeping the name in retail and institutional screens but not providing new catalysts. Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) Outperforms Broader Market: What You Need to Know
• Negative Sentiment: European publishers and tech firms are pressing the EU to accelerate a probe and impose a fine over alleged search favoritism, creating regulatory uncertainty that could pressure margins or fines down the road. Exclusive: European publishers, tech firms urge EU to speed up fine on Google over search
• Negative Sentiment: Some analysts flag valuation and near‑term margin pressure as capex for AI compute ramps and higher operating costs could limit upside despite growth, a narrative that may cap multiple expansion. Is Alphabet Stock's 25.55X PE Still Worth it? Buy, Sell, or Hold?

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Loop Capital boosted their price target on Alphabet from $320.00 to $355.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, February 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $395.00 price objective (up from $346.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. China Renaissance lifted their price objective on Alphabet from $330.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. UBS Group set a $348.00 target price on Alphabet and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Alphabet from $375.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, March 6th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $367.18.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.8%

NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $310.92 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.76 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.76, a PEG ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 1.10. 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 Inc. has a one year low of $140.53 and a one year high of $349.00. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $318.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $291.74.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last announced its 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. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

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

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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