Wood Tarver Financial Group LLC Invests $313,000 in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Wood Tarver Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm bought 1,657 shares of the information services provider's stock, valued at approximately $313,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Rockbridge Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,119,000. Optivise Advisory Services LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. Optivise Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,464 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $1,035,000 after acquiring an additional 403 shares during the last quarter. Community Bank N.A. boosted its stake in Alphabet by 6.4% during the 4th quarter. Community Bank N.A. now owns 46,173 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $8,741,000 after acquiring an additional 2,790 shares during the last quarter. Premier Fund Managers Ltd boosted its stake in Alphabet by 30.0% during the 4th quarter. Premier Fund Managers Ltd now owns 61,792 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $11,816,000 after acquiring an additional 14,262 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Absolute Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 14.0% during the 4th quarter. Absolute Capital Management LLC now owns 2,096 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $401,000 after acquiring an additional 258 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 11,764 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.84, for a total transaction of $1,962,705.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 49,037 shares in the company, valued at $8,181,333.08. The trade was a 19.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 1,374 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.47, for a total transaction of $238,347.78. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,024 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,606,213.28. This represents a 8.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 164,654 shares of company stock worth $26,793,380. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have weighed in on GOOGL. Wedbush set a $190.00 price target on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $167.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. DA Davidson cut their price target on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $160.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Finally, Mizuho cut their price target on shares of Alphabet from $230.00 to $205.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have issued a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $199.75.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock traded up $4.43 on Tuesday, hitting $172.90. The stock had a trading volume of 37,917,640 shares, compared to its average volume of 29,780,744. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The business's 50 day moving average is $158.87 and its two-hundred day moving average is $174.75. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The stock has a market cap of $2.10 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. The company had revenue of $76.49 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.89 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. This is an increase from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.49%. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is presently 9.36%.

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.