Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Key Points

• Investors bought 729,668 call options on Alphabet—an 84% jump vs. average—while the stock surged 9.4% to $382.73 on heavy volume (~53M shares), reflecting strong bullish demand in the options market.
• Alphabet posted a blowout Q1—EPS $5.11 vs. $2.64 and revenue $109.9B—with Google Cloud up ~63% YoY (>$20B), cited as the primary catalyst behind the share rally and multiple analyst target raises.
• Offsetting some optimism, insiders sold roughly 2.04M shares (~$94.2M) last quarter, though analysts remain largely positive with an average price target near $390.65 and most ratings at Buy.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) was the target of unusually large options trading on Thursday. Investors bought 729,668 call options on the company. This is an increase of 84% compared to the average daily volume of 397,295 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O'toole sold 617 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.63, for a total transaction of $178,701.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,923,235.59. The trade was a 5.76% 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. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.89, for a total value of $10,006,425.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,642,060 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $505,573,853.40. This trade represents a 1.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 2,037,192 shares of company stock valued at $94,182,217 over the last quarter. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Alphabet

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.9% during the first quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,866,427 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $531,732,000 after purchasing an additional 34,208 shares during the period. Griffith & Werner Inc. bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth approximately $220,000. Capstone Capital Management Ltd bought a new position in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth approximately $1,023,000. Austin Asset Management Co Inc grew its position in Alphabet by 19.0% during the first quarter. Austin Asset Management Co Inc now owns 4,125 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $1,186,000 after buying an additional 659 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 2.6% during the first quarter. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 10,182 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $2,928,000 after buying an additional 257 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GOOGL has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Alphabet from $385.00 to $415.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday. Roth Mkm reissued a "buy" rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday. Bank of America boosted their target price on Alphabet from $335.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Mizuho boosted their target price on Alphabet from $410.00 to $420.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, April 10th. Finally, KeyCorp set a $425.00 target price on Alphabet and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $390.65.

Alphabet Stock Up 9.4%

GOOGL traded up $32.79 on Thursday, hitting $382.73. 53,003,560 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 32,265,873. Alphabet has a 12 month low of $147.84 and a 12 month high of $385.84. The company has a market cap of $4.63 trillion, a PE ratio of 35.33, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a current ratio of 2.01. The stock's fifty day moving average is $312.08 and its 200-day moving average is $307.27.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $2.47. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The business had revenue of $109.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.59 billion. Equities research analysts predict that Alphabet will post 11.53 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Blowout Q1 results — Alphabet reported $5.11 EPS and $109.9B revenue, with Google Cloud topping estimates and enterprise AI demand cited as the driver. This is the primary catalyst for the stock rally. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud growth: Cloud revenue grew ~63% YoY to surpass $20B, signaling strong monetization of AI infrastructure and helping re-rate Alphabet as a leader in enterprise AI. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Subscriptions and ads: YouTube and Google One subscription expansion (25M net adds) plus an ad uplift support durable revenue mix diversification beyond search. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Street lifts targets: A large group of brokers raised price targets and reaffirmed buy/outperform views (examples include Citigroup, Goldman, JPMorgan), amplifying buying momentum. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: AI capex guidance and capacity: Management signaled continued heavy capex into 2027 to support AI data centers — investors accepted the growth story but the spending cadence remains a watch item for margins. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Data center buildouts progressing: Local deals to power new Google data centers (e.g., OG&E in Oklahoma) reduce execution risk on capacity expansion needed for cloud/AI demand. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and governance risks: Italy asked the EU to probe Google’s AI search tools over publisher concerns, and Switzerland opened a probe into alleged keyword-bidding pacts — European regulatory pressure could mean fines, product limits or business-model constraints. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Investor & employee scrutiny: Shareholders pressed Alphabet for safeguards on cloud/AI use by governments, and internal pushback surfaced over expanded Pentagon AI access — these governance issues raise reputational and policy risks. Read More.

About Alphabet

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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