Prentice Wealth Management LLC Grows Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Prentice Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 3.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 6,759 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 243 shares during the quarter. Prentice Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $1,279,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GOOGL. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 222,555,548 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $36,910,838,000 after purchasing an additional 743,369 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Alphabet by 2.0% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 134,030,679 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,154,651,000 after buying an additional 2,626,431 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in Alphabet by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 63,667,407 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $10,559,240,000 after buying an additional 4,567,275 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 49,857,900 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,268,933,000 after acquiring an additional 1,237,385 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 37,233,079 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $6,175,106,000 after acquiring an additional 523,416 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GOOGL. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $208.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. DA Davidson lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 24th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Citizens Jmp downgraded Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $210.62.

Alphabet Stock Performance

NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $172.35 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $188.59 and a two-hundred day moving average of $176.35. The company has a market capitalization of $2.10 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 0.99. Alphabet Inc. has a 1 year low of $131.61 and a 1 year high of $207.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.03. Alphabet had a return on equity of 32.49% and a net margin of 28.60%. As a group, analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.46%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.94%.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 37,134 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.02, for a total transaction of $6,870,532.68. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 282,832 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $52,329,576.64. This trade represents a 11.61 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,374 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.47, for a total value of $238,347.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 15,024 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,606,213.28. The trade was a 8.38 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 134,316 shares of company stock valued at $25,062,887. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Profile

Alphabet Inc offers various products and platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, including ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube.