Burney Co. Raises Stock Holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Burney Co. grew its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 1.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 12,040 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 142 shares during the quarter. Burney Co.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $2,293,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Weiss Asset Management LP purchased a new stake in Alphabet in the third quarter worth approximately $25,000. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9,200.0% in the 2nd quarter. Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC now owns 186 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter worth $33,000. HWG Holdings LP purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the second quarter valued at $40,000. Finally, Sanctuary Wealth Management L.L.C. lifted its holdings in Alphabet by 87.3% in the third quarter. Sanctuary Wealth Management L.L.C. now owns 251 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $42,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on GOOG. Pivotal Research boosted their price target on Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $212.00 to $216.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Scotiabank assumed coverage on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, October 11th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $212.00 price target on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $208.00 to $212.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group raised their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $200.56.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 37,134 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $185.02, for a total transaction of $6,870,532.68. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 282,832 shares in the company, valued at approximately $52,329,576.64. This represents a 11.61 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,834 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.32, for a total value of $550,702.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,847 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,468,029.04. This represents a 13.70 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 133,387 shares of company stock valued at $24,368,654 in the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.3 %

Alphabet stock opened at $194.48 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 1.95 and a quick ratio of 1.95. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $185.32 and its 200-day moving average price is $174.70. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $131.55 and a 1 year high of $202.88. The stock has a market cap of $2.38 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.79, a PEG ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 0.99.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $86.39 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.55 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 9th were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 10.61%.

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.