Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Raises Holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 0.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 120,952 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 574 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up approximately 1.1% of Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 27th largest position. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $22,896,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Alpha Cubed Investments LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Alpha Cubed Investments LLC now owns 537,201 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $101,692,000 after purchasing an additional 10,245 shares in the last quarter. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC now owns 92,528 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $17,516,000 after purchasing an additional 3,293 shares in the last quarter. ADE LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 9.9% during the fourth quarter. ADE LLC now owns 1,770 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $335,000 after purchasing an additional 160 shares in the last quarter. Segment Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 315.2% during the fourth quarter. Segment Wealth Management LLC now owns 82,219 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $15,564,000 after purchasing an additional 62,419 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Solidarity Wealth LLC boosted its position in Alphabet by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Solidarity Wealth LLC now owns 104,013 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $19,690,000 after purchasing an additional 3,516 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Alphabet from $204.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. KeyCorp increased their target price on Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Loop Capital increased their target price on Alphabet from $170.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Alphabet from $200.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $209.44.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 1,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $189.80, for a total transaction of $284,700.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 21,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,142,195.20. The trade was a 6.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 2,834 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.32, for a total value of $550,702.88. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 17,847 shares in the company, valued at $3,468,029.04. This trade represents a 13.70 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 133,387 shares of company stock worth $24,368,654. Corporate insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Stock Up 1.1 %

Alphabet stock opened at $200.21 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $130.66 and a 1-year high of $202.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 1.95 and a quick ratio of 1.95. The stock has a market cap of $2.45 trillion, a PE ratio of 26.55, a P/E/G ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 0.98. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $186.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $173.80.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.29. Alphabet had a return on equity of 31.66% and a net margin of 27.74%. The company had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $72.85 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.55 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 9th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.40%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 10.61%.

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.