Pennington Partners & CO. LLC Invests $612,000 in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Pennington Partners & CO. LLC acquired a new stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 3,215 shares of the information services provider's stock, valued at approximately $612,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in GOOG. Fiduciary Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. LSV Asset Management acquired a new position in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. WealthTrak Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at about $38,000. Mountain Hill Investment Partners Corp. bought a new stake in Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth about $39,000. Finally, Noble Wealth Management PBC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter worth approximately $43,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. UBS Group decreased their price target on Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 11th. Citigroup restated a "sell" rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Wedbush reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $220.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Benchmark restated a "negative" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $203.94.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.53, for a total transaction of $33,106.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 7,813 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,293,285.89. This trade represents a 2.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 673 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.33, for a total value of $104,537.09. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 15,303 shares in the company, valued at $2,377,014.99. This trade represents a 4.21 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 148,164 shares of company stock valued at $25,357,390. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.9 %

GOOG traded up $3.02 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $165.81. 16,826,135 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 19,174,655. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.01 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.60, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.01. Alphabet Inc. has a one year low of $142.66 and a one year high of $208.70. The stock's 50-day simple moving average is $162.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $177.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.79. The business had revenue of $90.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. Alphabet's quarterly revenue was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.89 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.51%. This is a boost from Alphabet's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is currently 9.36%.

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.