First Financial Group Corp Acquires Shares of 2,585 Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

First Financial Group Corp bought a new position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund bought 2,585 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $489,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in GOOGL. Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC now owns 2,186 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $363,000 after acquiring an additional 201 shares during the period. Impax Asset Management Group plc raised its holdings in Alphabet by 6.8% during the third quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc now owns 728,575 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $120,834,000 after purchasing an additional 46,677 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Alphabet by 3.1% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 11,283,594 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,871,384,000 after purchasing an additional 337,031 shares in the last quarter. Apollon Financial LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Apollon Financial LLC now owns 49,192 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $8,158,000 after purchasing an additional 147 shares during the period. Finally, OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 15.7% during the 3rd quarter. OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd now owns 801,353 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $132,351,000 after buying an additional 108,787 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, Director John L. Hennessy sold 200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.53, for a total value of $33,106.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,293,285.89. This represents a 2.50 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 1,340 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $202.08, for a total value of $270,787.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 17,848 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,606,723.84. The trade was a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 93,048 shares of company stock worth $17,374,274. 11.55% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Alphabet Stock Down 3.2 %

Shares of Alphabet stock opened at $165.06 on Thursday. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $147.22 and a twelve month high of $207.05. The stock has a market cap of $2.01 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $181.11 and a 200 day moving average price of $176.78.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.15 earnings per share 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%. Equities research analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 10th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.48%. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 9.94%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. DA Davidson upped their price objective on Alphabet from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 24th. Wedbush increased their price target on shares of Alphabet from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $215.00 to $210.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. KeyCorp dropped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $220.00 to $202.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Alphabet from $210.00 to $208.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have given a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $210.59.

About Alphabet

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.