Townsquare Capital LLC Sells 19,863 Shares of Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Townsquare Capital LLC reduced its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 44.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 24,903 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 19,863 shares during the period. Alphabet makes up about 0.9% of Townsquare Capital LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest position. Townsquare Capital LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $6,065,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the third quarter valued at $32,000. Tripletail Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Alphabet during the 3rd quarter valued at $40,000. WestEnd Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 58.7% in the 2nd quarter. WestEnd Advisors LLC now owns 165 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. University of Illinois Foundation acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Fairman Group LLC grew its holdings in Alphabet by 121.3% during the second quarter. Fairman Group LLC now owns 177 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 27.26% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q4 beat: Alphabet reported higher‑than‑expected revenue and EPS, Google Cloud grew ~48% YoY and backlog jumped to roughly $240B — proof of strong AI demand underpinning long‑term growth. Alphabet Crushes Earnings — MarketBeat
• Positive Sentiment: Product and ecosystem wins: Gemini adoption and enterprise traction (large token/API usage) are driving monetization across Search, YouTube and Cloud; Waymo is also using Google’s Genie‑3 model for virtual training — signals that AI investments are translating into product advantage. Waymo Taps Google’s Genie 3 — TipRanks
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst view is broadly positive but mixed on valuation: several price‑target raises and buy/overweight ratings highlight conviction in AI/cloud upside, while some firms flag a hold rating because of aggressive capex and near‑term margin pressure. New Analyst Forecast $395 — QuiverQuant
• Neutral Sentiment: Corporate moves: Alphabet announced a small quarterly dividend and continues to convert AI investments into subscriptions and ad monetization — long‑term positives, but limited near‑term impact on share price.
• Negative Sentiment: CapEx shock: management guided roughly $175–185B in 2026 CapEx (nearly double 2025), which spooked investors because it pushes spending and capital intensity into the spotlight and raises near‑term return uncertainty. That guidance is the primary reason shares fell today. Alphabet Resets the Bar for AI Spending — CNBC
• Negative Sentiment: Insider & fund selling: recent insider sales and public fund trimming (and some institutional position reductions) add selling pressure and amplify short‑term downside risk. Stock Down on Insider Selling — AmericanBankingNews
• Negative Sentiment: Policy & reputational risks: a proposed bill to regulate data‑center interconnection/charges and internal employee protests over government cloud contracts could raise operating costs or create reputational/headwind risks for data‑center expansion. Power for the People Act S.3682 — QuiverQuant Google Workers Demand End to Cloud Services — NYTimes

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have weighed in on GOOG. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $365.00 price target (up previously from $355.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $345.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $385.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $375.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have issued a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $343.47.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,778 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $312.30, for a total transaction of $867,569.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 8,962 shares in the company, valued at $2,798,832.60. This trade represents a 23.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total transaction of $5,614,173.81. Following the transaction, the insider owned 42,972 shares in the company, valued at $13,531,453.08. This represents a 29.32% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 2,070,464 shares of company stock worth $106,153,077 over the last three months. 12.99% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Trading Down 2.5%

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $323.10 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.90 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.10. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $350.15. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $322.32 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $270.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 2.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.59 by $0.23. The company had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.15 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 8.28%.

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.