Bridgewater Associates LP Has $685.51 Million Stock Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Bridgewater Associates LP trimmed its stake in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 17.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,621,308 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 758,029 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up 3.1% of Bridgewater Associates LP’s holdings, making the stock its 4th largest holding. Bridgewater Associates LP’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $685,514,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Kane Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $2,255,000. Lafayette Investments Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 5.0% in the fourth quarter. Lafayette Investments Inc. now owns 3,759 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $712,000 after purchasing an additional 180 shares in the last quarter. AGP Franklin LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter valued at $4,080,000. Rossby Financial LCC acquired a new stake in shares of Alphabet in the fourth quarter worth $1,458,000. Finally, Aware Super Pty Ltd as trustee of Aware Super purchased a new position in shares of Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at $168,939,000. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GOOGL has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $178.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $208.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 10th. Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $200.00 to $159.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Bank of America reissued a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 target price on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, Wedbush set a $190.00 price target on shares of Alphabet and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and five have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $200.74.

Alphabet Stock Down 1.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ GOOGL opened at $151.08 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $165.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $175.88. The stock has a market cap of $1.84 trillion, a P/E ratio of 18.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.03. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $140.53 and a 52-week high of $207.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 1.84.

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

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.53%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total value of $5,153,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,690 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.51, for a total transaction of $3,281,671.90. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 43,111 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,997,521.61. This represents a 29.09 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 115,663 shares of company stock worth $20,286,447. 11.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.