John Hennessy Sells 600 Shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Director John Hennessy sold 600 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.52, for a total transaction of $202,512.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 21,224 shares in the company, valued at $7,163,524.48. The trade was a 2.75% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

Alphabet Stock Performance

GOOGL opened at $330.00 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 1.75. The company has a market cap of $3.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.08. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $311.33 and a 200-day moving average of $254.30. Alphabet Inc. has a 52-week low of $140.53 and a 52-week high of $340.49.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The business had revenue of $102.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $99.90 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.00% and a net margin of 32.23%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 8th were issued a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.28%.

Trending Headlines about Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Big AI monetization wins — Apple’s decision to build next‑gen Siri on Google’s Gemini (a central catalyst behind Alphabet topping a ~$4 trillion valuation) implies licensing revenue and much broader Gemini distribution, which supports revenue and margins. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst backing — recent upgrades and a higher price target (e.g., Bank of America raised its GOOGL target) are propping sentiment and provide near‑term buy‑side support. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: New commercial partnerships — Google announced a Woolworths pilot to add agentic AI to its Olive chatbot in Australia, expanding potential retail use cases and distribution for Google’s AI services. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Competitive positioning — DeepMind leadership and comments that Chinese models are “months” behind support Alphabet’s technical edge, but competition remains intense and will keep investment cycles high. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Antitrust fallout — Google asked a judge to defer an order forcing it to share search data while it appeals a ruling that found an illegal monopoly in search; ongoing remedies or eventual enforcement could materially affect the core search business and ad economics. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Copyright litigation risk — major publishers are seeking to join a class action alleging Google used copyrighted material to train its AI, creating potential licensing costs, damages or restrictions on training data. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Infrastructure headwinds — Google warns U.S. transmission system constraints are slowing data‑center hookups and could raise capex and delay cloud/AI capacity expansion, pressuring near‑term margins. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — a disclosed director sale (600 shares) is small but adds to mixed sentiment amid other headwinds. Read More.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Citigroup reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Wednesday, December 31st. Citizens Jmp boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $340.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 31st. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Alphabet from $215.00 to $275.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, September 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on Alphabet from $260.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price objective on Alphabet from $260.00 to $305.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-five have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $326.31.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. StoneCrest Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.5% in the 4th quarter. StoneCrest Wealth Management Inc. now owns 24,842 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,776,000 after buying an additional 606 shares in the last quarter. MRA Advisory Group increased its stake in Alphabet by 2.7% in the fourth quarter. MRA Advisory Group now owns 1,310 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $410,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares during the period. Bouchey Financial Group Ltd raised its position in Alphabet by 4.8% in the fourth quarter. Bouchey Financial Group Ltd now owns 9,909 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $3,102,000 after purchasing an additional 453 shares in the last quarter. Aspire Capital Advisors LLC raised its position in Alphabet by 4.9% in the fourth quarter. Aspire Capital Advisors LLC now owns 7,106 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,224,000 after purchasing an additional 335 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Perigon Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC now owns 215,997 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $67,607,000 after purchasing an additional 11,685 shares in the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Alphabet

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.