Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL is Caldwell Trust Co’s 5th Largest Position

Caldwell Trust Co decreased its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 129,874 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 2,826 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises 3.0% of Caldwell Trust Co’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest holding. Caldwell Trust Co’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $31,572,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $283.48, for a total value of $9,213,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,337,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $662,526,494.12. This represents a 1.37% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total value of $5,614,173.81. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,531,453.08. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 189,909 shares of company stock worth $57,927,282 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL opened at $330.00 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $311.33 and its 200-day simple moving average is $255.38. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The stock has a market cap of $3.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.54, a P/E/G ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.08. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $140.53 and a 1 year high of $340.49.

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

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 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, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 8.28%.

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.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wolfe Research set a $380.00 price objective on Alphabet and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, January 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, December 12th. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $260.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $340.00 to $343.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 16th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $275.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, September 22nd. 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $326.31.

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.