Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Lowers Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System trimmed its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 0.5% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 477,600 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 2,500 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises about 1.9% of Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest position. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $116,105,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Corsicana & Co. acquired a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at approximately $54,000. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. raised its position in Alphabet by 36.4% during the second quarter. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. now owns 251 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $44,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares in the last quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet by 37.9% during the second quarter. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 324 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the last quarter. Finally, S&T Bank PA boosted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 40.2% in the 2nd quarter. S&T Bank PA now owns 345 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $61,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $330.00 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $311.33 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $254.85. The stock has a market cap of $3.98 trillion, a P/E ratio of 32.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.08. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $140.53 and a 52-week high of $340.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 1.75.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The company had revenue of $102.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 35.00%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 8th were given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 8.28%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on GOOGL shares. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $315.00 price target (up previously from $250.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $333.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $270.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 20th. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $290.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, Wolfe Research set a $380.00 target price on shares of Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $326.31.

Alphabet News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Big AI monetization wins — Apple’s decision to build next‑gen Siri on Google’s Gemini (a central catalyst behind Alphabet topping a ~$4 trillion valuation) implies licensing revenue and much broader Gemini distribution, which supports revenue and margins. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst backing — recent upgrades and a higher price target (e.g., Bank of America raised its GOOGL target) are propping sentiment and provide near‑term buy‑side support. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: New commercial partnerships — Google announced a Woolworths pilot to add agentic AI to its Olive chatbot in Australia, expanding potential retail use cases and distribution for Google’s AI services. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Competitive positioning — DeepMind leadership and comments that Chinese models are “months” behind support Alphabet’s technical edge, but competition remains intense and will keep investment cycles high. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Antitrust fallout — Google asked a judge to defer an order forcing it to share search data while it appeals a ruling that found an illegal monopoly in search; ongoing remedies or eventual enforcement could materially affect the core search business and ad economics. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Copyright litigation risk — major publishers are seeking to join a class action alleging Google used copyrighted material to train its AI, creating potential licensing costs, damages or restrictions on training data. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Infrastructure headwinds — Google warns U.S. transmission system constraints are slowing data‑center hookups and could raise capex and delay cloud/AI capacity expansion, pressuring near‑term margins. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — a disclosed director sale (600 shares) is small but adds to mixed sentiment amid other headwinds. Read More.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $312.30, for a total value of $867,569.40. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 8,962 shares in the company, valued at $2,798,832.60. This represents a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total transaction of $5,614,173.81. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,531,453.08. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 189,909 shares of company stock valued at $57,927,282 over the last ninety days. 11.64% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.