California State Teachers Retirement System Has $1.49 Billion Position in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

California State Teachers Retirement System trimmed its holdings in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 3.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 7,818,391 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 290,539 shares during the quarter. Alphabet accounts for 1.7% of California State Teachers Retirement System’s portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest holding. California State Teachers Retirement System owned approximately 0.06% of Alphabet worth $1,488,934,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 117,991,725 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $22,470,344,000 after purchasing an additional 3,189,592 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 104,777,092 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $19,894,651,000 after purchasing an additional 1,219,606 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 6.7% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 91,236,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $17,376,706,000 after purchasing an additional 5,758,244 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 16.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 57,098,042 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $10,873,751,000 after purchasing an additional 7,917,625 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in shares of Alphabet by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 39,148,500 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $7,455,571,000 after purchasing an additional 294,556 shares in the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $158.56, for a total transaction of $5,153,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,717,696 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $430,917,877.76. This trade represents a 1.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kavitark Ram Shriram sold 29,066 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $184.89, for a total value of $5,374,012.74. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 272,466 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,376,238.74. The trade was a 9.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 148,163 shares of company stock valued at $25,361,647 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have issued reports on GOOG. Citizens Jmp lowered Alphabet from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Citigroup reiterated a “sell” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. KeyCorp dropped their price objective on Alphabet from $202.00 to $185.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. Westpark Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $210.00 price objective on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Friday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Alphabet in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $203.94.

Alphabet Trading Up 1.5 %

GOOG opened at $163.85 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The company has a market cap of $2.00 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.04. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $164.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $177.35. Alphabet Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $142.66 and a fifty-two week high of $208.70.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The information services provider reported $2.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.79. The business had revenue of $90.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.30 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 28.60% and a return on equity of 32.49%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 10th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.49%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 10th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.36%.

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.