Philip James Wealth Mangement LLC Takes Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Philip James Wealth Mangement LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 1,339 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $222,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Stiles Financial Services Inc increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.6% in the third quarter. Stiles Financial Services Inc now owns 28,292 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $4,695,000 after acquiring an additional 157 shares during the last quarter. Comprehensive Financial Consultants Institutional Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.9% in the third quarter. Comprehensive Financial Consultants Institutional Inc. now owns 14,778 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,451,000 after buying an additional 271 shares during the period. Financial Strategies Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 5.3% in the third quarter. Financial Strategies Group Inc. now owns 1,319 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $218,000 after buying an additional 66 shares during the period. AIA Group Ltd lifted its stake in Alphabet by 4.6% during the third quarter. AIA Group Ltd now owns 167,860 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $27,840,000 after purchasing an additional 7,396 shares during the period. Finally, Summit Global Investments lifted its stake in Alphabet by 8.0% during the third quarter. Summit Global Investments now owns 132,792 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $22,024,000 after purchasing an additional 9,784 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $180.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $204.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $217.00 price objective (up from $215.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Loop Capital lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $170.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-one have assigned a buy rating and five have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $205.90.

Insider Activity at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.44, for a total value of $109,420.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 32,017 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,136,807.48. This represents a 2.09 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director John L. Hennessy sold 800 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $153.75, for a total transaction of $123,000.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 28,524 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,385,565. This trade represents a 2.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 206,795 shares of company stock valued at $34,673,866 in the last quarter. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $167.83 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $167.50 and a 200-day moving average of $170.38. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $127.90 and a 1-year high of $191.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.95, a quick ratio of 1.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a market cap of $2.05 trillion, a PE ratio of 22.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 1.03.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $88.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $72.85 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.55 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.99 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, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 9th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s payout ratio is 10.61%.

Alphabet Company 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.