Alphabet Inc. $GOOGL Stock Position Raised by Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV

Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 9.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 83,220 shares of the information services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,374 shares during the quarter. Alphabet makes up 1.3% of Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 10th largest position. Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV’s holdings in Alphabet were worth $20,231,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Breakwater Investment Management raised its position in shares of Alphabet by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Breakwater Investment Management now owns 4,228 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,028,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Alliance Advisory Group LLC increased its position in Alphabet by 1.0% during the third quarter. Wealth Alliance Advisory Group LLC now owns 4,045 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $983,000 after buying an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Clearview Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 3.3% in the third quarter. Clearview Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,281 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $312,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Fonville Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Alphabet by 0.7% in the third quarter. Fonville Wealth Management LLC now owns 6,078 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,478,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kooman & Associates boosted its stake in shares of Alphabet by 3.3% during the third quarter. Kooman & Associates now owns 1,343 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $326,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company’s stock.

More Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst upgrades and bullish notes support near?term sentiment — Needham and RBC reiterated/issued buy ratings and recent coverage called for earnings upside into the next report, helping lift conviction in shares. Alphabet Earns Buy Rating from Needham RBC Reiterates Buy
• Positive Sentiment: Google and Amazon’s push into AI chips reduces reliance on Nvidia and signals growing in?house/cloud hardware capabilities — positive for Google Cloud margins and capex leverage. Amazon and Google Eat Into Nvidia’s A.I. Chip Supremacy
• Positive Sentiment: Product momentum: Chrome adds AI image generation and a side?panel assistant, and Alphabet is pushing AI into Search — supports ad/search revenue upside and user engagement. Google adds AI image generation to Chrome Zacks: AI Push to Boost Search Growth
• Positive Sentiment: Security actions: Google disrupted a large residential proxy network (IPIDEA) tied to abuse, which reduces fraud risk and is a reputational win for its platforms. That supports enterprise trust and regulatory relations. Google disrupts large residential proxy network Google Disrupts Network That Allowed Bad Actors
• Neutral Sentiment: Competitive landscape pieces compare CoreWeave and Alphabet for AI infrastructure — highlights both opportunity and execution risk as GOOGL competes on hardware, software and cloud pricing. CRVW vs. GOOGL: Which Stock Wins the AI Infrastructure Race?
• Neutral Sentiment: Short interest data in the feed is noisy/zeroed and not informative — no clear short?squeeze signal from the provided entry. (No link — data summary.)
• Negative Sentiment: Waymo safety incident: a Waymo driverless vehicle struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school; NHTSA has opened an investigation. This raises regulatory and liability risk for the autonomous driving unit and could pressure sentiment around Waymo?related capex and commercialization timelines. Waymo Robotaxi Hits Child, Prompting NHTSA Investigation CNBC: A Waymo hit a child near an elementary school
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/legal pressure: the U.K. CMA is proposing rules to let publishers opt out of AI overviews and new conduct requirements; Alphabet also agreed to a ~$135M U.S. settlement over cellular data handling — potential modest earnings/headline risk and ongoing compliance costs. U.K. Competition Watchdog Plans New Rules Google to Pay $135 Million to Settle Lawsuit

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on GOOGL. Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on shares of Alphabet from $224.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. New Street Research boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $275.00 to $295.00 in a research report on Friday, October 24th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $365.00 target price (up previously from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Alphabet from $340.00 to $343.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 16th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reissued a “positive” rating and set a $350.00 price target (up previously from $268.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-two have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $334.60.

Insider Activity

In other Alphabet news, insider John Kent Walker sold 17,829 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $314.89, for a total transaction of $5,614,173.81. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 42,972 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,531,453.08. The trade was a 29.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $283.48, for a total transaction of $9,213,100.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,337,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $662,526,494.12. This represents a 1.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 222,297 shares of company stock valued at $68,531,851 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 11.64% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Trading Up 0.7%

GOOGL stock opened at $338.25 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The company has a market cap of $4.08 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.36, a PEG ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 1.08. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $319.46 and a 200-day simple moving average of $263.90. Alphabet Inc. has a 52 week low of $140.53 and a 52 week high of $342.29.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The information services provider reported $2.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.29 by $0.58. The firm had revenue of $102.35 billion during 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%. On average, equities research analysts expect that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current year.

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.