Howard Financial Services LTD. Boosts Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Howard Financial Services LTD. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 19.8% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 17,727 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,927 shares during the period. Howard Financial Services LTD.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $6,335,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. NewEdge Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 11.8% in the fourth quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC now owns 887,209 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $277,696,000 after acquiring an additional 93,293 shares during the period. PFG Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.6% during the first quarter. PFG Investments LLC now owns 89,299 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $25,679,000 after purchasing an additional 2,269 shares during the period. Retail Employees Superannuation Pty Ltd as trustee for Retail Employees Superannuation Trust bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter worth about $28,902,000. W.G. Shaheen & Associates DBA Whitney & Co increased its holdings in Alphabet by 17.1% during the 4th quarter. W.G. Shaheen & Associates DBA Whitney & Co now owns 118,966 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $37,236,000 after purchasing an additional 17,415 shares during the period. Finally, KLCM Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Alphabet by 66.1% during the 4th quarter. KLCM Advisors Inc. now owns 22,877 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,161,000 after purchasing an additional 9,105 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,050 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $368.63, for a total value of $387,061.50. Following the sale, the director directly owned 1,481 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $545,941.03. This represents a 41.49% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 8,998 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.29, for a total transaction of $3,142,911.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 75,290 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,298,044.10. The trade was a 10.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 600,547 shares of company stock valued at $16,255,540. 11.61% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google’s Gemini app surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, marking a major distribution milestone that could strengthen Alphabet’s AI ecosystem, user engagement and monetization potential. Google’s Gemini app surges to one billion users
• Positive Sentiment: Ryanair signed a five-year Google Cloud agreement to deploy Gemini and DeepMind models for crew scheduling and operational decisions, providing evidence of enterprise demand for Alphabet’s AI and cloud offerings. Ryanair signs five-year Google Cloud deal
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s increased AI investment continues to attract investor interest, with analysts highlighting the company’s momentum and potential beneficiaries of its planned data-center spending. However, the scale of investment remains a key debate. Alphabet’s Higher AI Spending Could Boost These ETFs
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet’s earnings influence on broader S&P 500 growth underscores its importance to market performance, but it also makes the stock more sensitive to shifts in technology-sector sentiment and portfolio positioning. Tech Stocks Have Stumbled
• Negative Sentiment: Alphabet remains exposed to more than 3,000 youth-addiction lawsuits alleging that social-media platforms were designed to harm young users. The litigation could create financial liability and increase regulatory pressure. Social media platforms still facing thousands of user addiction lawsuits
• Negative Sentiment: A French newspaper group asked regulators to investigate Google’s AI-generated search summaries, arguing they divert traffic from publishers. Similar disputes could raise compliance costs and threaten parts of Google’s search economics. French media asks French anti-trust watchdog to act on Google’s AI
• Negative Sentiment: AI data centers face significant power and infrastructure constraints, adding execution risk to Alphabet’s large capital-spending plans and raising questions about returns on AI investment. AI’s Next Bottleneck Isn’t Chips, It’s Power Infrastructure

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on GOOGL shares. HSBC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $420.00 price objective (down from $435.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Citigroup restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, May 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $390.00 price target (up from $345.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a report on Monday, May 4th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $420.00 price objective (down from $435.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $419.86.

Alphabet Stock Down 3.8%

GOOGL stock opened at $343.80 on Wednesday. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $196.60 and a fifty-two week high of $408.61. The company has a market capitalization of $4.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $354.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $340.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.64 and a current ratio of 2.72.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The information services provider reported $9.11 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.89 by $6.22. Alphabet had a return on equity of 51.32% and a net margin of 54.77%.The company had revenue of $119.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $117.07 billion. As a group, analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 20.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 7th will be issued a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 4th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 4.42%.

Alphabet 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.