Aspire Capital Advisors LLC Increases Stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Aspire Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 9.3% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,443 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 123 shares during the period. Aspire Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $225,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. ARQ Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 39.3% during the fourth quarter. ARQ Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,964 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $945,000 after buying an additional 1,400 shares during the period. Independence Bank of Kentucky lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 10.2% during the first quarter. Independence Bank of Kentucky now owns 14,907 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,329,000 after buying an additional 1,376 shares during the last quarter. Harvest Investment Services LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. Harvest Investment Services LLC now owns 4,329 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $824,000 after buying an additional 138 shares during the last quarter. North Forty Two & Co. bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at about $281,000. Finally, Fermata Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Fermata Advisors LLC now owns 9,771 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,527,000 after buying an additional 259 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.00, for a total value of $105,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,192,275. The trade was a 8.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $176.68, for a total value of $5,742,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,555,196 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $451,452,029.28. The trade was a 1.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 228,070 shares of company stock valued at $37,745,632 over the last quarter. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on GOOG. Rosenblatt Securities raised shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Tigress Financial reaffirmed a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Citigroup reaffirmed a “sell” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $209.00 to $173.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 11th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $204.88.

Alphabet Trading Down 3.6%

Alphabet stock opened at $167.73 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.77, a current ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $208.70. The company has a market capitalization of $2.04 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.01. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $166.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $176.41.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.54% and a net margin of 30.86%. The firm had revenue of $90.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 9th were issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 9th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.50%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 9.36%.

Alphabet Company 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.