Independent Solutions Wealth Management LLC Boosts Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Independent Solutions Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 12.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 29,363 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,302 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises about 1.3% of Independent Solutions Wealth Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 21st biggest holding. Independent Solutions Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $7,138,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 45.5% during the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 203,909 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $49,572,000 after acquiring an additional 63,756 shares in the last quarter. Kennon Green & Company LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Kennon Green & Company LLC now owns 32,793 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,972,000 after purchasing an additional 176 shares during the last quarter. Financial Advisory Partners LLC bought a new stake in Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,265,000. RWQ Financial Management Services Inc. increased its stake in Alphabet by 25.1% during the 3rd quarter. RWQ Financial Management Services Inc. now owns 68,240 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $16,589,000 after purchasing an additional 13,675 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cathy Pareto & Associates Inc. raised its holdings in Alphabet by 9.7% in the third quarter. Cathy Pareto & Associates Inc. now owns 2,877 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $700,000 after buying an additional 255 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

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.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on GOOGL shares. Stifel Nicolaus set a $333.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Alphabet from $270.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $300.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Tuesday, November 25th. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $350.00 price objective (up from $320.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Friday, December 19th. Finally, Guggenheim reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $375.00 target price (up previously from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, December 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $326.31.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $321.21, for a total value of $10,439,325.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,244,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $720,914,730.12. This trade represents a 1.43% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.52, for a total value of $202,512.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 21,224 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,163,524.48. This represents a 2.75% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 189,909 shares of company stock worth $57,927,282 over the last three months. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $330.00 on Monday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $311.33 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $255.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.98 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.54, a PEG 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 data on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.29 by $0.58. The firm had revenue of $102.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.23% and a return on equity of 35.00%. Analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 8th. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s payout ratio is presently 8.28%.

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.