Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Boosts Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 24.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,539,691 shares of the information services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 506,187 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises 1.9% of Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 6th biggest position. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $483,659,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MBB Public Markets I LLC raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 3,586.8% in the 2nd quarter. MBB Public Markets I LLC now owns 361,788 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $66,359,000 after acquiring an additional 351,975 shares during the period. Matrix Private Capital Group LLC raised its holdings in Alphabet by 6.0% in the second quarter. Matrix Private Capital Group LLC now owns 2,110 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $387,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the period. Marathon Capital Management boosted its position in shares of Alphabet by 7.1% during the second quarter. Marathon Capital Management now owns 11,320 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $2,076,000 after purchasing an additional 755 shares in the last quarter. Lummis Asset Management LP grew its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 0.4% in the 2nd quarter. Lummis Asset Management LP now owns 18,959 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $3,477,000 after buying an additional 76 shares during the period. Finally, Select Equity Group L.P. increased its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 624,862 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $114,612,000 after buying an additional 8,807 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Alphabet Stock Performance

Shares of GOOG stock opened at $201.90 on Friday. Alphabet Inc. has a one year low of $131.55 and a one year high of $203.84. 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 $2.47 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.78, a P/E/G ratio of 1.27 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $187.39 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $175.23.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.29. The company had revenue of $88.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $86.39 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 27.74% and a return on equity of 31.66%. The company’s revenue was up 15.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.55 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.02 EPS for the current year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 9th were issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.40%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio is currently 10.61%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.36, for a total value of $3,990,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,084,306 shares in the company, valued at approximately $369,672,512.16. The trade was a 1.07 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,367 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $170.41, for a total transaction of $232,950.47. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 23,515 shares in the company, valued at $4,007,191.15. This represents a 5.49 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 133,387 shares of company stock worth $24,368,654 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. UBS Group increased their price target on Alphabet from $187.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Scotiabank raised their target price on shares of Alphabet from $212.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Pivotal Research upped their price target on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Phillip Securities raised shares of Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group increased their target price on Alphabet from $220.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alphabet has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $205.13.

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.