Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Stake Trimmed by Financial Advocates Investment Management

Financial Advocates Investment Management lessened its stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 83.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,286 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 21,079 shares during the period. Financial Advocates Investment Management’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $1,042,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 516,559,609 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $91,033,300,000 after acquiring an additional 6,733,278 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in Alphabet by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.1% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 141,615,284 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $24,857,017,000 after purchasing an additional 4,224,497 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the second quarter valued at $21,944,208,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% in the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 44,151,820 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $7,780,875,000 after buying an additional 503,306 shares during the period. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on GOOGL shares. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $370.00 price target on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. BNP Paribas Exane started coverage on Alphabet in a report on Monday, November 24th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $355.00 target price on the stock. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on shares of Alphabet from $310.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Pivotal Research boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $400.00 to $420.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Alphabet from $350.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $366.57.

Key Stories Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Google struck a multibillion-dollar deal to rent its Tensor Processing Units to Meta, validating TPU demand and directly boosting Google Cloud/infra revenue potential. Google signs multibillion-dollar AI chip deal with Meta
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst coverage highlights accelerating Google Cloud growth, heavy AI-driven demand and a large backlog (~$240B cited), supporting faster revenue expansion and margin leverage from cloud services. AI Push Provides a Boost to GOOGL’s Cloud Business
• Positive Sentiment: Google launched Nano Banana 2, an upgraded AI image generator with faster speeds and better text rendering — another visible product that drives user engagement and showcases Gemini-era AI improvements. Google launches Nano Banana 2
• Positive Sentiment: Longer-term optionality from stakes and partnerships: coverage points to Alphabet’s meaningful Anthropic stake (equity upside + Google Cloud infra revenue) and other private holdings that could materially boost valuation if monetized. Alphabet’s Quiet Edge: The Hidden Assets Powering Its Run
• Positive Sentiment: Waymo is expanding testing to Chicago and Charlotte as it scales autonomous ride‑hailing — a revenue diversification story that supports the long-term “Other Bets” growth narrative. Waymo to begin testing in Chicago and Charlotte
• Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet folded robotics software unit Intrinsic into Google — operational consolidation that may speed commercialization but has limited near-term revenue impact. Former Alphabet ‘moonshot’ robotics company Intrinsic is folding into Google
• Neutral Sentiment: Google reported disruption of a China-linked hacker network — positive for security posture and enterprise trust but unlikely to move near-term fundamentals. Google disrupts Chinese-linked hackers
• Negative Sentiment: EU regulatory pressure: Google is testing a new search layout to show rivals’ vertical results more prominently in Europe to try to avoid a fine — a change that could reduce some direct monetization in affected result types if broadly adopted. Google to test changes to search results as EU fine looms
• Negative Sentiment: Minor regional/legal friction: a small Russian fine was reported for distributing VPN apps — reputational/regulatory noise but immaterial to global results. Russia fines Google for distributing VPN services
• Negative Sentiment: Market signals: there were reports of insider selling and mixed analyst flows (price-target moves), which can prompt short-term profit-taking after a long GOOGL run. Alphabet Shares Down After Insider Selling

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, major shareholder 2017 Gp L.L.C. Gv sold 1,845,308 shares of the business’s 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.73, for a total transaction of $184,038.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 20,624 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,325,999.52. This represents a 2.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders sold 2,112,482 shares of company stock worth $119,145,289. 11.64% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Alphabet Stock Down 1.8%

Alphabet stock opened at $307.38 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $140.53 and a 1-year high of $349.00. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $320.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $281.45. The company has a market capitalization of $3.72 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.43, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.09.

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

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

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 paid a $0.21 dividend. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.77%.

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.