Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL is Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s 5th Largest Position

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 0.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 564,378 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,289 shares during the period. Alphabet accounts for 1.8% of Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest holding. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $137,200,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Financial Gravity Companies Inc. purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $53,000. Corsicana & Co. acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Vermillion & White Wealth Management Group LLC raised its stake in shares of 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 raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 40.2% during the second quarter. S&T Bank PA now owns 345 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $61,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $306.73, for a total value of $184,038.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 20,624 shares in the company, valued at $6,325,999.52. This represents a 2.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.92, for a total value of $9,877,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,818,524 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $856,605,814.08. This represents a 1.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock worth $119,145,289 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on GOOGL. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $279.00 to $357.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $395.00 target price (up from $365.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Tigress Financial set a $415.00 price target on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 19th. Citizens Jmp restated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $385.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group set a $415.00 price objective on Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $366.57.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google struck a multibillion-dollar deal to rent its Tensor Processing Units to Meta, validating TPU demand and directly boosting Google Cloud/infra revenue potential. Google signs multibillion-dollar AI chip deal with Meta
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst coverage highlights accelerating Google Cloud growth, heavy AI-driven demand and a large backlog (~$240B cited), supporting faster revenue expansion and margin leverage from cloud services. AI Push Provides a Boost to GOOGL’s Cloud Business
• Positive Sentiment: Google launched Nano Banana 2, an upgraded AI image generator with faster speeds and better text rendering — another visible product that drives user engagement and showcases Gemini-era AI improvements. Google launches Nano Banana 2
• Positive Sentiment: Longer-term optionality from stakes and partnerships: coverage points to Alphabet’s meaningful Anthropic stake (equity upside + Google Cloud infra revenue) and other private holdings that could materially boost valuation if monetized. Alphabet’s Quiet Edge: The Hidden Assets Powering Its Run
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo is expanding testing to Chicago and Charlotte as it scales autonomous ride‑hailing — a revenue diversification story that supports the long-term “Other Bets” growth narrative. Waymo to begin testing in Chicago and Charlotte
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet folded robotics software unit Intrinsic into Google — operational consolidation that may speed commercialization but has limited near-term revenue impact. Former Alphabet ‘moonshot’ robotics company Intrinsic is folding into Google
• Neutral Sentiment: Google reported disruption of a China-linked hacker network — positive for security posture and enterprise trust but unlikely to move near-term fundamentals. Google disrupts Chinese-linked hackers
• Negative Sentiment: EU regulatory pressure: Google is testing a new search layout to show rivals’ vertical results more prominently in Europe to try to avoid a fine — a change that could reduce some direct monetization in affected result types if broadly adopted. Google to test changes to search results as EU fine looms
• Negative Sentiment: Minor regional/legal friction: a small Russian fine was reported for distributing VPN apps — reputational/regulatory noise but immaterial to global results. Russia fines Google for distributing VPN services
• Negative Sentiment: Market signals: there were reports of insider selling and mixed analyst flows (price-target moves), which can prompt short-term profit-taking after a long GOOGL run. Alphabet Shares Down After Insider Selling

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $307.38 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.72 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.09. 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 business’s 50 day simple moving average is $320.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $281.45. Alphabet Inc. has a 12 month low of $140.53 and a 12 month high of $349.00.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. The firm 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, equities analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is currently 7.77%.

About Alphabet

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.