Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Trims Stock Holdings in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System reduced its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 1.8% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 410,000 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 7,400 shares during the period. Alphabet comprises approximately 1.3% of Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest holding. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $72,730,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of GOOG. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 5.6% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 120,253 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,901,000 after purchasing an additional 6,410 shares during the last quarter. Revisor Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 107.9% in the 1st quarter. Revisor Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,659 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $572,000 after purchasing an additional 1,899 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 19.5% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 91,681 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $14,323,000 after purchasing an additional 14,931 shares during the last quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.3% in the 1st quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 2,653,344 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $414,532,000 after purchasing an additional 157,481 shares during the last quarter. Finally, May Barnhard Investments LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 5.5% during the first quarter. May Barnhard Investments LLC now owns 5,188 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $811,000 after acquiring an additional 269 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on GOOG. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an “equal weight” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. KeyCorp set a $265.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Scotiabank increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 2nd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $241.00.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOG opened at $237.49 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $226.97 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $189.66. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $142.66 and a 1-year high of $256.70. The company has a market cap of $2.87 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.29, a PEG ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.19. Alphabet had a net margin of 31.12% and a return on equity of 34.31%. The firm had revenue of $96.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $93.67 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 8th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.95%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Frances Arnold sold 103 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $243.13, for a total value of $25,042.39. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 17,284 shares in the company, valued at $4,202,258.92. This represents a 0.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $243.41, for a total transaction of $7,910,825.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,402,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $584,699,785.79. This represents a 1.33% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 276,738 shares of company stock valued at $59,135,475 over the last 90 days. 12.99% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.