Lecap Asset Management Ltd. Invests $665,000 in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Lecap Asset Management Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 3,628 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $665,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Alphabet by 219.3% during the second quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 68,740 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $12,608,000 after buying an additional 47,209 shares in the last quarter. XML Financial LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet by 40.7% during the second quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 19,803 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $3,632,000 after purchasing an additional 5,732 shares during the last quarter. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet by 0.8% during the second quarter. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,310 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,524,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Alphabet during the second quarter worth approximately $48,000. Finally, Capital Advisory Group Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in Alphabet by 7.4% during the second quarter. Capital Advisory Group Advisory Services LLC now owns 9,598 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $1,760,000 after purchasing an additional 658 shares during the last quarter. 27.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GOOG has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Wolfe Research upgraded Alphabet to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Alphabet from $205.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities cut Alphabet from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $181.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Friday, June 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Alphabet presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $182.86.

Insider Buying and Selling at Alphabet

In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.66, for a total value of $3,772,350.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,159,885 shares in the company, valued at $362,126,319.10. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Sundar Pichai sold 22,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.66, for a total value of $3,772,350.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,159,885 shares in the company, valued at $362,126,319.10. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Amie Thuener O’toole sold 682 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.86, for a total value of $118,572.52. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,966 shares in the company, valued at $5,209,888.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 179,065 shares of company stock valued at $31,025,543. Insiders own 12.99% of the company’s stock.

Alphabet Price Performance

GOOG stock traded up $0.21 on Thursday, reaching $167.84. 2,420,174 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 20,244,188. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $176.79 and a 200-day moving average of $164.34. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $121.46 and a twelve month high of $193.31. The firm has a market cap of $2.07 trillion, a PE ratio of 25.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a quick ratio of 2.08, a current ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.85 by $0.04. Alphabet had a return on equity of 30.49% and a net margin of 26.70%. The firm had revenue of $84.74 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $84.22 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.44 earnings per share. Alphabet’s quarterly revenue was up 13.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Alphabet Inc. will post 7.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 9th will be issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 9th. Alphabet’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 12.27%.

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.