Willis Investment Counsel Grows Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Willis Investment Counsel grew its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 3.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 52,358 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,972 shares during the period. Willis Investment Counsel’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $16,388,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of GOOGL. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.9% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $20,886,000 after buying an additional 4,110 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.5% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,826,000 after buying an additional 506 shares in the last quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 17.6% during the 2nd quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY now owns 3,888 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $685,000 after buying an additional 581 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 11.2% during the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 485,486 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $85,557,000 after buying an additional 48,805 shares in the last quarter. Finally, United Bank lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 48,204 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $8,495,000 after buying an additional 3,120 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently commented on GOOGL shares. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday. Dbs Bank raised their target price on Alphabet from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, April 17th. Loop Capital raised their target price on Alphabet from $320.00 to $355.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $400.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Arete Research increased their price target on Alphabet from $380.00 to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-six have issued a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $369.47.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 955 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $298.00, for a total transaction of $284,590.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 9,918 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,955,564. This trade represents a 8.78% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.41, for a total value of $318,580.50. Following the sale, the director directly owned 4,631 shares in the company, valued at $1,405,091.71. This trade represents a 18.48% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 2,037,294 shares of company stock worth $94,216,897. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple analysts raised price targets and maintained constructive ratings, signaling Wall Street confidence (Cantor Fitzgerald to $395 and KeyCorp to $380; UBS also raised its target). These upgrades support upside expectations for GOOGL. Cantor Fitzgerald Raises Alphabet Price Target to $395
• Positive Sentiment: Google is embedding Gemini AI into Chrome for ~3.5 billion users and shipping UX features (Skills for Gemini) that could increase user engagement and ad/commerce monetization. This product-level AI push supports longer-term growth. Google Embeds AI Into Chrome for 3.5 Billion Users
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet is deepening its AI infrastructure play — talks with Marvell on custom inference chips and continued TPU product momentum, plus a very large 2026 capex plan and a $240B Google Cloud contract backlog — which bolsters cloud margin/scale expectations and reduces reliance on third‑party GPUs. Here’s Why the AI Infrastructure Story Is Just Getting Bigger for GOOGL
• Neutral Sentiment: Legal/competitive developments elsewhere may have indirect effects: a UK tribunal allowed a mass suit against Microsoft over Windows Server cloud licensing to proceed — could alter cloud pricing dynamics but outcome/impact on Google Cloud is uncertain. Microsoft must face $2.8 billion UK lawsuit
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling was reported and cited as a driver of intraday weakness, contributing to near-term negative sentiment despite the positive fundamentals. Alphabet Shares Down Following Insider Selling
• Negative Sentiment: Ad-market competition risk: forecasts that Meta will surpass Google in ad revenue this year add pressure to the core ads growth narrative and could temper near-term revenue upside. Meta Set To Surpass Google With $243 Billion In Ad Revenue

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $332.29 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $307.36 and a 200 day moving average of $303.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 2.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.02 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 1.12. Alphabet Inc. has a 12 month low of $147.84 and a 12 month high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 11.53 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th were paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

Alphabet Company Profile

Alphabet Inc is the holding company created in 2015 to organize Google and a portfolio of businesses developing technologies beyond Google’s core internet services. Its principal operations are led by Google, which builds and operates consumer-facing products such as Google Search, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Workspace, as well as advertising platforms (Google Ads and AdSense) that historically generate the majority of its revenue. Google also develops consumer hardware (Pixel phones, Nest smart-home devices, Chromecast) and developer and distribution platforms such as Google Play.

Beyond Google’s consumer and advertising businesses, Alphabet invests in enterprise and infrastructure offerings through Google Cloud, which provides cloud computing, data analytics and productivity services to businesses and institutions.