Heartland Advisors Inc. Invests $542,000 in Alphabet Inc. $GOOG

Heartland Advisors Inc. bought a new position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 2,225 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $542,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 5.6% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 120,253 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,901,000 after acquiring an additional 6,410 shares during the last quarter. Ignite Planners LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Ignite Planners LLC now owns 14,506 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,697,000 after purchasing an additional 144 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 594,959 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $105,540,000 after purchasing an additional 41,132 shares during the last quarter. Joseph P. Lucia & Associates LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.7% during the second quarter. Joseph P. Lucia & Associates LLC now owns 3,134 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $556,000 after buying an additional 111 shares during the period. Finally, Alpha Wealth Funds LLC bought a new position in Alphabet during the second quarter worth $2,318,000. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and brokers have raised price targets and highlighted AI/cloud upside (UBS, Canaccord), citing Gemini adoption and generative‑AI capex that could add meaningful cloud revenue. UBS generative AI capex note
• Positive Sentiment: Alphabet committed to a major $15B America‑India Connect initiative and announced partnerships (Zillow, Sea) that expand Gemini/Cloud into verticals — positive for long‑term cloud/ads monetization and market reach. America-India Connect announcement
• Positive Sentiment: Notable institutional buying from hedge funds (e.g., Appaloosa/Tepper, Altimeter, Viking) signals conviction in Alphabet’s AI/Cloud thesis and can support the stock through execution milestones. Appaloosa increases stake
• Neutral Sentiment: Product demos (Gemini AI coach, music features) and consumer launches (Pixel device with AI features) improve user engagement and positioning but are not immediate revenue drivers. Gemini demo on CNBC
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data for February shows anomalies (zeros/NaN) and provides no clear bearish signal at present; treat the statistic cautiously until reconciled.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: senior execs disclosed sizable sales (Sundar Pichai, John Kent Walker), which markets often view as a modest near‑term negative signal despite normal tax/liquidity reasons. Pichai sale filing Walker sale filing
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/IP risk: prosecutors have charged engineers in an alleged scheme to steal Google trade secrets and pass files abroad — reputational and security concerns that could invite regulatory scrutiny. Trade-secrets indictment
• Negative Sentiment: Execution/supply risks: DeepMind’s CEO warned that memory‑chip shortages constrain agentic AI research/deployment, which could slow rollout timing or raise costs for compute‑intensive initiatives. DeepMind chip shortage comments
• Negative Sentiment: Several institutional investors disclosed trims (Pershing Square, Longview, others). Broad portfolio rebalancing can weigh on near‑term sentiment even if longer‑term AI momentum remains. Pershing Square trim

Alphabet Price Performance

Alphabet stock opened at $314.90 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.66 and a 52 week high of $350.15. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $320.95 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $278.92. The stock has a market cap of $3.81 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.13, a P/E/G ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.10. 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: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. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. The company had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $111.24 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.15 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Investors of record on Monday, March 9th will be issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.77%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have issued reports on GOOG shares. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $375.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $330.00 to $390.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Truist Financial set a $350.00 target price on Alphabet in a research report on Friday, December 5th. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $348.00 target price (up from $345.00) on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, Wolfe Research upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $290.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Eight 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 stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $343.90.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Alphabet news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.92, for a total transaction of $9,877,400.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,818,524 shares in the company, valued at $856,605,814.08. This represents a 1.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Friday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.00, for a total value of $35,060,852.00. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 2,112,482 shares of company stock worth $119,145,289 in the last ninety days. 12.99% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Alphabet Company Profile

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.