Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Holdings Cut by Manning & Napier Advisors LLC

Manning & Napier Advisors LLC lowered its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 6.5% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 676,946 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 47,108 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up 2.7% of Manning & Napier Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest position. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $194,663,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 110,330 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $20,886,000 after purchasing an additional 4,110 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 14,930 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,826,000 after buying an additional 506 shares in the last quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 17.6% during the second quarter. Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. NY now owns 3,888 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $685,000 after buying an additional 581 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 11.2% in the second quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 485,486 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $85,557,000 after buying an additional 48,805 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank increased its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.9% in the second quarter. United Bank now owns 48,204 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,495,000 after buying an additional 3,120 shares during the last quarter. 40.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other Alphabet news, Director Frances Arnold sold 112 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $351.28, for a total value of $39,343.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 18,833 shares in the company, valued at $6,615,656.24. The trade was a 0.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Marsida Saraci sold 449 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.72, for a total value of $153,432.28. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 27,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,345,358.56. This trade represents a 1.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 159,415 shares of company stock valued at $7,672,279 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 11.61% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOGL stock opened at $346.77 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $4.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.45, a PEG ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 1.24. Alphabet Inc. has a 1-year low of $183.71 and a 1-year high of $408.61. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $368.89 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $338.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.92 and a quick ratio of 1.92.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $2.47. Alphabet had a net margin of 37.92% and a return on equity of 38.99%. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $106.98 billion. Research analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 14.33 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 8th were issued a $0.22 dividend. This is an increase from Alphabet’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 8th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is 6.71%.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street remains broadly bullish on Alphabet, with multiple reports citing strong cloud growth, AI-driven momentum in Search and YouTube, and price targets still above current trading levels. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts say Alphabet could post a strong Q2, helped by Google Cloud strength and the value of its Anthropic stake, which may support upside if earnings beat expectations. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Investors are also positioning for Alphabet’s upcoming earnings report, with options traders expecting a sizable move, indicating that the stock may stay volatile into the release. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Bloomberg-reported delays to Gemini 3.5 Pro have sparked fears that Google is lagging in AI, with concerns that the model’s coding performance fell short of internal goals. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Alphabet is facing added regulatory pressure after the EU ordered it to open Android and search data to rival AI companies, and a San Francisco order to remove “nudify” apps from app stores adds to the broader legal overhang. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Securities-fraud investigation headlines are creating an additional near-term overhang, even though these are still allegations and not a proven finding of wrongdoing. Article Title

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GOOGL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $395.00 to $465.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $425.00 to $445.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 10th. Rothschild & Co Redburn upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $390.00 to $430.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. HSBC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $420.00 price target (down from $435.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Phillip Securities lifted their price target on Alphabet from $340.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 15th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-seven have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $414.11.

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.