V Square Quantitative Management LLC Cuts Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• V Square Quantitative Management trimmed its stake in Alphabet by 2.0% in Q4, selling 2,413 shares and leaving it with 119,390 shares valued at about $37.37 million (Alphabet is 3.9% of the firm's portfolio and its 4th largest holding).
• Wall Street sentiment is broadly constructive: multiple analysts raised price targets amid Alphabet's AI momentum (embedding Gemini in Chrome and AI infrastructure work), with an average MarketBeat price target around $369.47 and a "Moderate Buy" consensus.
• Despite positive fundamentals, notable insider selling has weighed on near‑term sentiment—CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares and insiders sold some 2,037,294 shares (~$94.2M) in the last quarter.

V Square Quantitative Management LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) by 2.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 119,390 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 2,413 shares during the period. Alphabet makes up 3.9% of V Square Quantitative Management LLC's portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest position. V Square Quantitative Management LLC's holdings in Alphabet were worth $37,369,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of GOOGL. PMV Capital Advisers LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 4th quarter valued at about $38,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at about $53,000. Kentucky Trust Co lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 142.9% during the 4th quarter. Kentucky Trust Co now owns 170 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. iSAM Funds UK Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at about $53,000. Finally, Corsicana & Co. acquired a new stake in Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple analysts raised price targets and maintained constructive ratings, signaling Wall Street confidence (Cantor Fitzgerald to $395 and KeyCorp to $380; UBS also raised its target). These upgrades support upside expectations for GOOGL. Cantor Fitzgerald Raises Alphabet Price Target to $395
• Positive Sentiment: Google is embedding Gemini AI into Chrome for ~3.5 billion users and shipping UX features (Skills for Gemini) that could increase user engagement and ad/commerce monetization. This product-level AI push supports longer-term growth. Google Embeds AI Into Chrome for 3.5 Billion Users
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet is deepening its AI infrastructure play — talks with Marvell on custom inference chips and continued TPU product momentum, plus a very large 2026 capex plan and a $240B Google Cloud contract backlog — which bolsters cloud margin/scale expectations and reduces reliance on third‑party GPUs. Here's Why the AI Infrastructure Story Is Just Getting Bigger for GOOGL
• Neutral Sentiment: Legal/competitive developments elsewhere may have indirect effects: a UK tribunal allowed a mass suit against Microsoft over Windows Server cloud licensing to proceed — could alter cloud pricing dynamics but outcome/impact on Google Cloud is uncertain. Microsoft must face $2.8 billion UK lawsuit
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling was reported and cited as a driver of intraday weakness, contributing to near-term negative sentiment despite the positive fundamentals. Alphabet Shares Down Following Insider Selling
• Negative Sentiment: Ad-market competition risk: forecasts that Meta will surpass Google in ad revenue this year add pressure to the core ads growth narrative and could temper near-term revenue upside. Meta Set To Surpass Google With $243 Billion In Ad Revenue

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on GOOGL shares. Piper Sandler reissued an "overweight" rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up from $365.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Alphabet from $279.00 to $357.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Alphabet from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a "market outperform" rating and set a $385.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, April 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-six have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Alphabet presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $369.47.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL opened at $332.29 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $307.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $303.43. The company has a market capitalization of $4.02 trillion, a PE ratio of 30.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 1.12. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $147.84 and a 1 year high of $349.00. 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 (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion during 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%. Research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 11.53 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th were paid a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet's payout ratio is 7.77%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Frances Arnold sold 112 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.99, for a total transaction of $33,934.88. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,418 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,580,469.82. This represents a 0.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.89, for a total value of $10,006,425.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,642,060 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $505,573,853.40. The trade was a 1.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last quarter, insiders sold 2,037,294 shares of company stock worth $94,216,897. 11.55% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Alphabet Company 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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