Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Director John L. Hennessy has sold a portion of his company stock, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The transactions, which occurred on June 12, involved sales totaling over $260,000.
Hennessy, who serves on Alphabet’s board of directors, executed multiple sales of Class C Capital Stock and Class A Common Stock on the said date. The Class C stock sales involved 664 shares, with individual transactions ranging from 32 to 424 shares each. Prices for these sales varied, with a range between $177.97 and $180.6577 per share. The Class A stock disposals included 836 shares, sold in separate transactions ranging from 11 to 519 shares. These shares fetched prices between $176.7331 and $179.19 each.
The SEC filing detailed that the sales were conducted at varying prices within specific ranges, indicating that the prices reported were weighted average prices. For instance, some Class C shares were sold at prices from $178.08 to $178.93, while others ranged from $179.10 to $179.95. Class A shares saw similar variations, with some sold between $176.22 to $176.99 and others between $178.16 to $178.95.
Following these transactions, Hennessy still holds a substantial number of shares in Alphabet. According to the filing, his ownership includes 3,727 shares of Class C Capital Stock and 32,324 shares of Class A Common Stock held indirectly by a trust.
The filing also mentioned that the transactions were carried out under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, which allows company insiders to sell stocks at predetermined times to avoid allegations of insider trading.
Investors often monitor insider sales for insights into executives’ confidence in their company's prospects. However, it's important to note that such sales can be motivated by various personal financial planning reasons and do not always indicate a change in company outlook.
In other recent news, Alphabet Inc. reported a strong first quarter for 2024, with a 14% year-over-year increase in Google Services revenues and a 28% increase in Google Cloud segment revenues. The company also announced a new $70 billion share repurchase authorization and a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share. Alphabet's annual revenue has grown from $100 billion to over $300 billion in six years, with Google Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud expected to achieve a combined annual run rate of over $100 billion by the end of 2024.
Also, Alphabet Inc's Google has been involved in a high-stakes antitrust trial in the U.S., focusing on allegations that the tech giant unlawfully maintained its dominance in the online search market. The trial heard key testimonies from representatives of Verizon (NYSE:VZ), Samsung Electronics (KS:005930), and Google itself regarding the company's substantial payments, totaling $26.3 billion in 2021, made to ensure Google's search engine remains the default on various devices.
TD (TSX:TD) Cowen has maintained its Buy rating for Alphabet stock following the company's latest I/O developer conference, which showcased an array of AI-related updates, including enhancements to Gemini and the introduction of new image and video generators. The conference also highlighted updated hardware, specifically the 6th generation Tensor Processing Unit, designed to improve computing power for machine learning tasks.
In other developments, New Jersey's 5th congressional district representative, Josh Gottheimer, and Michigan's 13th district congress member, Shri Thanedar, have made notable trades involving Alphabet stocks. Gottheimer made several purchases of Alphabet - Class C Capital Stock, while Thanedar made partial sales of Alphabet Inc.'s Class A Common Stock and Class C Capital Stock.
InvestingPro Insights
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