Safeguard Financial LLC Increases Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Safeguard Financial LLC lifted its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 18.7% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 4,929 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 777 shares during the period. Safeguard Financial LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $939,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Henrickson Nauta Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.0% in the 4th quarter. Henrickson Nauta Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 1,721 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $328,000 after purchasing an additional 98 shares during the period. 626 Financial LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. 626 Financial LLC now owns 14,304 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,724,000 after purchasing an additional 153 shares during the period. Fiduciary Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Fiduciary Financial Group LLC now owns 14,942 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,886,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the period. Mayfair Advisory Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 13.4% in the 4th quarter. Mayfair Advisory Group LLC now owns 3,393 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $646,000 after purchasing an additional 401 shares during the period. Finally, Quantum Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 12.3% in the 4th quarter. Quantum Financial Advisors LLC now owns 11,495 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,189,000 after purchasing an additional 1,263 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 16,820 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.62, for a total transaction of $3,239,868.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 43,981 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,471,620.22. The trade was a 27.66 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,367 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $170.41, for a total transaction of $232,950.47. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 23,515 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,007,191.15. The trade was a 5.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 133,387 shares of company stock valued at $24,368,654 over the last three months. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $185.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $187.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Phillip Securities upgraded shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $200.56.

Alphabet Trading Up 3.1 %

GOOG stock opened at $196.98 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $184.95 and a 200 day moving average price of $174.55. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $131.55 and a fifty-two week high of $202.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a current ratio of 1.95. The firm has a market cap of $2.41 trillion, a PE ratio of 26.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 0.99.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. The firm had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $86.39 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.55 earnings per share. Alphabet’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 9th were issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 10.61%.

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.