RFG Advisory LLC Decreases Stake in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

RFG Advisory LLC lessened its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 6.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 69,035 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 4,563 shares during the quarter. RFG Advisory LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $16,782,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Brighton Jones LLC increased its stake in Alphabet by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $20,886,000 after purchasing an additional 4,110 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,826,000 after purchasing an additional 506 shares in the last quarter. Hutchens & Kramer Investment Management Group LLC grew its holdings in Alphabet by 9.6% in the second quarter. Hutchens & Kramer Investment Management Group LLC now owns 4,900 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $862,000 after purchasing an additional 431 shares during the last quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 17.6% in the second quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY now owns 3,888 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $685,000 after buying an additional 581 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 11.2% in the second quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 485,486 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $85,557,000 after buying an additional 48,805 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strategic cloud partnerships expanding addressable market — Google announced a deal with Sea Ltd to build AI tools for e‑commerce and gaming, which supports Google Cloud revenue growth in Southeast Asia and demonstrates enterprise demand for its AI stack. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Product momentum — Google is rolling Gemini‑powered, music‑focused generative‑AI features (also showing up at competitors), indicating faster consumer AI adoption that could boost engagement and future monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Institutional support & analyst upgrades — recent 13F activity and analyst price‑target increases (and MarketBeat coverage) signal long‑term investor conviction that can underpin the stock. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: AI infrastructure arms race — NVIDIA–Meta mega‑deal and hyperscaler capex plans validate AI demand but raise competitive and capital‑intensity questions for Google; this is demand‑positive but increases the investment bar. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet exploring chip/partner strategies — WSJ reports Google is weighing ways to use its balance sheet to better compete with chip suppliers, a strategic move that could reduce long‑run costs or distract management depending on execution. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — recent disclosed sales by CEO Sundar Pichai and senior exec John Kent Walker (multi‑million dollar sales) can sap near‑term sentiment even if routine for compensation/liquidity reasons. Read More. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Security/legal risk — indictment of three engineers accused of stealing Google trade secrets and sending data to Iran raises potential IP, litigation and reputational risks that investors will watch. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: AI rotation/profit‑taking — some prominent managers have trimmed AI positions in recent 13F filings, which contributes to episodic pressure on hyperscaler multiples. Read More.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on GOOGL shares. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 1st. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $375.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Tigress Financial set a $415.00 price objective on Alphabet and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Argus increased their target price on Alphabet from $365.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Alphabet from $279.00 to $357.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Three research 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $365.86.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $314.98 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $3.81 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.09. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $320.32 and a 200-day simple moving average of $279.46. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $349.00. The company has a quick ratio of 2.01, a current ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.25. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%.The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. Equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced 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 of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.77%.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total transaction of $35,060,852.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 47,574 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $301.45, for a total transaction of $14,341,182.30. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 13,227 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,987,279.15. This represents a 78.25% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock worth $119,145,289. 11.55% of the stock is currently 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.