Donaldson Capital Management LLC Increases Stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Donaldson Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 4.7% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 70,445 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,157 shares during the quarter. Donaldson Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $13,335,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 20,990.0% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 6,186,748 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,171,151,000 after purchasing an additional 6,157,413 shares during the last quarter. Amundi lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 18.7% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 29,866,698 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,792,317,000 after purchasing an additional 4,694,621 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in shares of Alphabet by 7.7% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 63,667,407 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $10,559,240,000 after purchasing an additional 4,567,275 shares in the last quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG purchased a new position in Alphabet in the third quarter valued at $513,024,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 134,030,679 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,154,651,000 after acquiring an additional 2,626,431 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the topic of several research analyst reports. KeyCorp cut their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $202.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of Alphabet from $232.00 to $229.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, DA Davidson lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $210.59.

Alphabet Stock Up 0.7 %

Alphabet stock opened at $163.99 on Monday. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $147.22 and a fifty-two week high of $207.05. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.00 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.02. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $182.57 and its two-hundred day moving average is $176.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. Analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.49%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider John Kent Walker sold 16,820 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.62, for a total transaction of $3,239,868.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 43,981 shares in the company, valued at $8,471,620.22. The trade was a 27.66 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,368 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $191.55, for a total transaction of $262,040.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 20,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,961,445.55. This represents a 6.20 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 93,048 shares of company stock worth $17,374,274 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.