Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL is Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC’s 4th Largest Position

Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC trimmed its position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 8.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 107,412 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 10,013 shares during the quarter. Alphabet comprises 2.1% of Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 4th largest position. Foster Victor Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $35,446,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of GOOGL. PMV Capital Advisers LLC purchased a new position in Alphabet during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $38,000. Pilgrim Partners Asia Pte Ltd purchased a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at approximately $53,000. iSAM Funds UK Ltd purchased a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at approximately $53,000. Kentucky Trust Co raised its position in Alphabet by 142.9% during the fourth quarter. Kentucky Trust Co now owns 170 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $53,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sellwood Investment Partners LLC purchased a new position in Alphabet during the third quarter valued at approximately $63,000. 40.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alphabet Stock Up 0.0%

Alphabet stock opened at $349.94 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.23 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 1.12. Alphabet Inc. has a 12 month low of $147.84 and a 12 month high of $355.79. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $312.08 and a 200-day simple moving average of $307.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 2.01 and a quick ratio of 2.01.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The information services provider reported $5.11 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.64 by $2.47. The business had revenue of $109.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $106.59 billion. Alphabet had a return on equity of 35.01% and a net margin of 32.81%. On average, analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 11.53 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Key Headlines Impacting Alphabet

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q1 earnings beat and strong top-line — Alphabet reported $5.11 EPS vs. consensus ~ $2.62 and revenue ~ $109.9B, topping estimates; investors treated the print as confirmation that heavy AI/cloud spending is translating to growth. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Google Cloud acceleration — Cloud revenue grew ~63% and surpassed $20B, signaling strong enterprise AI demand that materially boosted the quarter. This is a primary driver of the stock strength. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Subscription and YouTube momentum — Alphabet added ~25M paid subscriptions (now ~350M) and YouTube ad revenue rose ~11%, showing diversified, recurring revenue beyond search ads. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: New monetization paths in AI — Management signaled openness to placing ads in Gemini/AI Mode and is enabling commerce inside AI apps via partners (e.g., Stripe), which creates additional long-term ad and transactions revenue streams. Read More. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Defense contracts could open new TAM — Alphabet signed classified-access arrangements with the U.S. DoD for Gemini models, creating a potential high-margin revenue stream but also raising ethical/backlash considerations. Investors view this as revenue-positive but reputationally mixed. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst updates lift expectations — Some firms nudged FY estimates higher after the results, supporting the near-term bull case but also reflecting momentum already priced into the stock. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Cloud capacity constraints — Management flagged capacity limits that may have constrained Cloud growth this quarter, raising questions about how quickly Alphabet can scale without heavy incremental capex or allocation trade-offs. That introduces near-term growth/ margin uncertainty. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Governance, employee and regulatory risk — Shareholder groups and employees pushed for more safeguards over cloud/AI use (and Alphabet expanded Pentagon access), and EU/Australian policy moves could increase compliance costs or limit certain revenue channels. These are top-down risks that can weigh multiple quarters out. Read More. Read More.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on GOOGL. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target (up from $348.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday, April 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Alphabet from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Tuesday. Argus boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $365.00 to $385.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $360.00 price objective (up from $315.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-six have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $369.67.

Insider Transactions at Alphabet

In other news, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 617 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.63, for a total value of $178,701.71. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 10,093 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,923,235.59. The trade was a 5.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Frances Arnold sold 112 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $302.99, for a total value of $33,934.88. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,418 shares in the company, valued at $5,580,469.82. This represents a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,037,192 shares of company stock valued at $94,182,217. Insiders own 11.55% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Profile

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.