Alphabet Inc. $GOOG Position Trimmed by Alley Investment Management Company LLC

Alley Investment Management Company LLC cut its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 11,627 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 67 shares during the quarter. Alley Investment Management Company LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $2,063,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of GOOG. ACT Advisors LLC. boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.5% in the second quarter. ACT Advisors LLC. now owns 1,625 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $288,000 after buying an additional 55 shares during the period. LongView Wealth Management boosted its stake in Alphabet by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. LongView Wealth Management now owns 5,126 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $909,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the period. Kooman & Associates boosted its stake in Alphabet by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Kooman & Associates now owns 4,127 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $732,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the period. Colton Groome Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. Colton Groome Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,742 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $309,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the period. Finally, NCM Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.2% in the first quarter. NCM Capital Management LLC now owns 2,802 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $438,000 after buying an additional 60 shares during the period. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GOOG has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Mizuho raised Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Alphabet from $210.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and set a $270.00 price objective (up from $235.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Pivotal Research raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $245.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $235.33.

Alphabet Stock Up 0.4%

Shares of GOOG opened at $246.43 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $220.84 and a 200-day simple moving average of $186.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.98 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.24, a P/E/G ratio of 1.66 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a current ratio of 1.90. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $256.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.31 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 business had revenue of $96.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $93.67 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.89 earnings per share. Alphabet’s revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Investors of record on Monday, September 8th were given a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 8.95%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 23,820 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.70, for a total transaction of $4,637,754.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,999 shares in the company, valued at $8,371,905.30. This represents a 35.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction 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 stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,527,392 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $466,000,536.96. This represents a 1.27% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 276,738 shares of company stock valued at $59,135,475 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

About Alphabet

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.