Exchange Traded Concepts LLC Increases Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL

Exchange Traded Concepts LLC grew its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 32.0% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 776,168 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 188,104 shares during the period. Alphabet makes up 1.8% of Exchange Traded Concepts LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 10th largest position. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $242,941,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. bought a new position in Alphabet in the third quarter valued at approximately $416,217,000. Griffin Asset Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 13.9% during the third quarter. Griffin Asset Management Inc. now owns 58,731 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $14,277,000 after acquiring an additional 7,180 shares in the last quarter. Sovran Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 23.6% during the third quarter. Sovran Advisors LLC now owns 22,219 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,401,000 after acquiring an additional 4,241 shares in the last quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 4.7% during the second quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. now owns 1,457,732 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $256,896,000 after acquiring an additional 65,439 shares during the period. Finally, Wright Investors Service Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 21.2% during the third quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. now owns 50,064 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $12,171,000 after acquiring an additional 8,746 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on GOOGL. Roth Mkm upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $365.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 14th. Citigroup boosted their price target on Alphabet from $350.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 6th. Truist Financial set a $385.00 price objective on Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Raymond James Financial upgraded Alphabet from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-four have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $367.33.

Alphabet Trading Down 0.5%

Shares of NASDAQ:GOOGL opened at $295.77 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $309.93 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $295.97. Alphabet Inc. has a one year low of $140.53 and a one year high of $349.00. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $3.58 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.12.

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

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 9th were paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.77%.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts remain constructive: several outlets note continued Buy/Outperform ratings on Alphabet driven by cloud monetization and AI opportunity — Wells Fargo kept an overweight stance (while trimming targets), signaling upside remains despite lower PTs. Ahead of Meta, Alphabet earnings, Wells Fargo keeps overweight, cuts PTs
• Positive Sentiment: Market/analyst commentary highlights Alphabet’s AI upside — an Outperform rating specifically cites AI growth potential as a driver for long‑term revenue and cloud monetization. Alphabet (GOOGL) Rated Outperform on AI Growth Potential
• Positive Sentiment: Product & tech advances: coverage of Google’s Gemma 4 and reporting on the TurboQuant breakthrough reinforce Alphabet’s lead in model and efficiency advances — positive for future monetization and competitive moat. Google’s Gemma 4 brings AI superpowers to your device Google’s TurboQuant Breakthrough Just Rewrote the AI Playbook
• Neutral Sentiment: Talent movement: Broadcom named Alphabet executive Amie Thuener as its next CFO — a notable departure but not an earnings item; monitor succession and any operational impact. Broadcom taps Alphabet executive Amie Thuener as next CFO
• Negative Sentiment: Near‑term cash‑flow risk: Semianalysis’ CEO warned AI capex could push Google’s free cash flow toward zero next year, feeding investor worries about heavy, multi‑year spending before full monetization. Semianalysis CEO: Google’s free cash flow will hit zero next year from AI capex
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/reputational pressure: EU hospitality groups and child‑development experts are urging scrutiny of Google’s search rankings and AI video recommendations, raising potential regulatory and compliance risks in Europe and for YouTube. EU hospitality groups raise concerns over Google search rankings Experts urged Google to prohibit AI Videos targeting young YouTube users
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: An SEC filing shows a senior executive sold ~9k shares in late March — a modest but visible reduction in insider ownership that can prompt short‑term concern. John Kent Walker insider sale disclosure

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total transaction of $35,060,852.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company’s 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,818,524 shares in the company, valued at approximately $856,605,814.08. This represents a 1.14% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 2,101,227 shares of company stock worth $114,969,050 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

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.