Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. Grows Position in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. grew its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 3.7% in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 41,530 shares of the information services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,470 shares during the period. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd.’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $11,906,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of GOOG. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Alphabet by 2.0% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 421,013,782 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $132,114,125,000 after purchasing an additional 8,128,234 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 187,102,863 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $58,712,878,000 after purchasing an additional 953,790 shares during the last quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its position in Alphabet by 38,409.2% during the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 179,836,276 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $5,643,262,000 after buying an additional 179,369,280 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its stake in Alphabet by 28,482.8% during the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 112,091,870 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $35,174,429,000 after buying an additional 111,699,704 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 100,602,893 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $31,569,189,000 after buying an additional 1,073,151 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOG has been the topic of several analyst reports. Truist Financial set a $430.00 price target on Alphabet in a report on Monday, June 1st. Phillip Securities downgraded shares of Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 15th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Alphabet from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $450.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, May 21st. Finally, UBS Group set a $430.00 price objective on Alphabet in a research report on Thursday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $383.44.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOG opened at $346.12 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $4.19 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.40, a PEG ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 1.23. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $184.73 and a fifty-two week high of $404.47. The company has a quick ratio of 1.92, a current ratio of 1.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $366.29 and its 200 day moving average price is $336.65.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The information services provider reported $5.11 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $2.43. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $106.96 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.81 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 21.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 8th were given a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 8th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 6.71%.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America and Wedbush remain bullish, with both highlighting strong cloud growth, AI monetization potential, and upside to the stock ahead of earnings. Alphabet could crush estimates on Cloud strength, Anthropic windfall: BofA
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and investors are still pointing to accelerating Google Search and Google Cloud growth, while retail interest and institutional ownership remain strong ahead of the July 22 report.
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet’s AI and cloud businesses remain central to the bullish thesis, with multiple articles noting that the company could benefit from rising AI infrastructure spend and strong earnings expectations.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Frances Arnold sold 112 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $351.28, for a total value of $39,343.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 18,833 shares in the company, valued at $6,615,656.24. The trade was a 0.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Marsida Saraci sold 449 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.72, for a total transaction of $153,432.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 27,348 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,345,358.56. This represents a 1.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 159,415 shares of company stock worth $7,672,279. Corporate insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

About Alphabet

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a multinational technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Formed in 2015 through a corporate restructuring of Google, Alphabet serves as the parent to Google LLC and a portfolio of businesses collectively known as “Other Bets.” Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Alphabet is led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google and the broader company while the founders remain prominent shareholders and influential figures in the company’s history.

Alphabet’s core business centers on internet search and advertising, with Google Search and the company’s ad platforms (including Google Ads and AdSense) generating the majority of revenue by connecting advertisers with consumers worldwide.