Cohen Investment Advisors LLC Cuts Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Cohen Investment Advisors LLC lessened its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 3,027 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 89 shares during the period. Cohen Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $537,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of GOOG. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 580,897.4% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 135,087,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $23,963,208,000 after acquiring an additional 135,064,454 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth about $2,622,943,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 411,570,922 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $64,299,725,000 after acquiring an additional 9,687,855 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 9.9% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 102,232,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,971,861,000 after acquiring an additional 9,243,959 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Strs Ohio purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the first quarter worth about $369,713,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Trading Down 1.9%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOG opened at $237.49 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 12-month low of $142.66 and a 12-month high of $256.70. The company has a market capitalization of $2.87 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.29, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.00. The business has a 50 day moving average of $226.97 and a two-hundred day moving average of $189.81. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.19. Alphabet had a return on equity of 34.31% and a net margin of 31.12%.The company had revenue of $96.43 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $93.67 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. Alphabet’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 8th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 8.95%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on GOOG. KeyCorp set a $265.00 price target on Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Barclays restated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Roth Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $270.00 target price (up previously from $235.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $241.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $184.38, for a total value of $5,992,350.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,527,392 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $466,000,536.96. The trade was a 1.27% 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, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 18,566 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.76, for a total value of $3,448,820.16. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 243,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $45,213,984. The trade was a 7.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 276,738 shares of company stock valued at $59,135,475. 12.99% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.