Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC Takes Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Key Points

• Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC has acquired a new stake in Alphabet Inc., purchasing 8,932 shares valued at approximately $1.38 million, making it the firm's 16th largest holding.
• In the first quarter, several institutional investors, including Nuveen LLC and GAMMA Investing LLC, significantly increased their stakes in Alphabet, with GAMMA boosting its position by 16,993.2%.
• Alphabet recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share, with a payout ratio of 8.95%, and reported a 2.0% increase in stock price, bringing shares to around $211.64.

Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 8,932 shares of the information services provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,381,000. Alphabet accounts for about 1.0% of Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC's portfolio, making the stock its 16th largest holding.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Alphabet in the 1st quarter valued at about $4,317,606,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 16,993.2% in the 1st 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. boosted its position in Alphabet by 2.9% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 509,826,331 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $78,839,544,000 after buying an additional 14,307,345 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in Alphabet by 15.9% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 66,050,135 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $12,503,291,000 after buying an additional 9,042,271 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 307.6% in 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 buying an additional 7,774,811 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alphabet Stock Up 2.0%

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $211.64 on Friday. The business's fifty day moving average price is $189.51 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $173.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.90 and a quick ratio of 1.90. The company has a market capitalization of $2.56 trillion, a P/E ratio of 22.54, a PEG ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $212.22.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $96.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $93.60 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.21 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.4%. Alphabet's payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GOOGL. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $195.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Truist Financial restated a "buy" rating and issued a $200.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, July 2nd. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on Alphabet from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $211.53.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 240,400 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $44,656,704. This trade represents a 5.87% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 23,820 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 of the company's stock, valued at approximately $8,371,905.30. The trade was a 35.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 254,608 shares of company stock worth $47,204,035 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 11.64% of the company's stock.

About Alphabet

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.

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