Sundar Pichai Sells 32,500 Shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Stock

February 21, 2026 by InsiderTrades.com

Key Points

Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet on Feb. 18 at an average price of $303.92 (~$9.88M), leaving him with 2,818,524 shares valued at roughly $856.6M, a 1.14% cut to his stake.
The Feb. 18 sale continues a recurring pattern—Pichai executed identical 32,500‑share sales multiple times since early December—creating noticeable insider selling that may pressure near‑term sentiment even if routine for liquidity/compensation.
Alphabet recently beat quarterly estimates and announced a $0.21 quarterly dividend, and analysts maintain a Moderate Buy consensus with an average target of $365.86, supporting the company’s underlying fundamentals.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.92, for a total value of $9,877,400.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,818,524 shares in the company, valued at approximately $856,605,814.08. This trade represents a 1.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink.

MarketBeat Week in Review – 02/16 - 02/20

Sundar Pichai also recently made the following trade(s):

On Wednesday, February 4th, Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $335.18, for a total value of $10,893,350.00.
On Wednesday, January 21st, Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $327.30, for a total transaction of $10,637,250.00.
On Wednesday, January 7th, Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $321.21, for a total transaction of $10,439,325.00.
On Monday, December 15th, Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $299.80, for a total transaction of $9,743,500.00.
On Wednesday, December 3rd, Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares of Alphabet stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $319.50, for a total transaction of $10,383,750.00.

Alphabet Price Performance

Shares of GOOGL opened at $314.98 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.81 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.14, a PEG ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.09. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $320.32 and its 200-day simple moving average is $278.30. Alphabet Inc. has a twelve month low of $140.53 and a twelve month high of $349.00. The company has a current ratio of 2.01, a quick ratio of 2.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11.

Booking Holdings Split: The Catalyst Wall Street Didn’t See Coming

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The information services provider reported $2.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.57 by $0.25. The firm had revenue of $113.83 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $111.24 billion. Alphabet had a net margin of 32.81% and a return on equity of 35.01%. Equities analysts forecast that Alphabet Inc. will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alphabet Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 9th will be given a dividend of $0.21 per share. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 9th. Alphabet's dividend payout ratio is currently 7.77%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Alphabet

NVIDIA and Meta Deepen Their AI Alliance—and the Spending Numbers Are Enormous

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 528,969,322 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $165,567,398,000 after purchasing an additional 12,531,695 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Alphabet by 1.8% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 229,954,269 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $40,524,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,008,374 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Alphabet by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 146,193,037 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $45,625,595,000 after buying an additional 2,666,676 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Alphabet in the 2nd quarter valued at $21,944,208,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE raised its position in Alphabet by 4.9% during the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 69,108,183 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $21,630,861,000 after buying an additional 3,218,852 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 40.03% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. BNP Paribas Exane assumed coverage on Alphabet in a report on Monday, November 24th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $355.00 price target for the company. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $305.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Guggenheim reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $375.00 target price (up from $330.00) on shares of Alphabet in a research report on Monday, December 1st. China Renaissance lifted their price target on shares of Alphabet from $330.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group upped their price objective on shares of Alphabet from $333.00 to $380.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty-three have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $365.86.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on GOOGL

More Alphabet News

Here are the key news stories impacting Alphabet this week:

Positive Sentiment: Strategic cloud partnerships expanding addressable market — Google announced a deal with Sea Ltd to build AI tools for e‑commerce and gaming, which supports Google Cloud revenue growth in Southeast Asia and demonstrates enterprise demand for its AI stack. Read More.
Positive Sentiment: Product momentum — Google is rolling Gemini‑powered, music‑focused generative‑AI features (also showing up at competitors), indicating faster consumer AI adoption that could boost engagement and future monetization. Read More.
Positive Sentiment: Institutional support & analyst upgrades — recent 13F activity and analyst price‑target increases (and MarketBeat coverage) signal long‑term investor conviction that can underpin the stock. Read More.
Neutral Sentiment: AI infrastructure arms race — NVIDIA–Meta mega‑deal and hyperscaler capex plans validate AI demand but raise competitive and capital‑intensity questions for Google; this is demand‑positive but increases the investment bar. Read More.
Neutral Sentiment: Alphabet exploring chip/partner strategies — WSJ reports Google is weighing ways to use its balance sheet to better compete with chip suppliers, a strategic move that could reduce long‑run costs or distract management depending on execution. Read More.
Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — recent disclosed sales by CEO Sundar Pichai and senior exec John Kent Walker (multi‑million dollar sales) can sap near‑term sentiment even if routine for compensation/liquidity reasons. Read More. Read More.
Negative Sentiment: Security/legal risk — indictment of three engineers accused of stealing Google trade secrets and sending data to Iran raises potential IP, litigation and reputational risks that investors will watch. Read More.
Negative Sentiment: AI rotation/profit‑taking — some prominent managers have trimmed AI positions in recent 13F filings, which contributes to episodic pressure on hyperscaler multiples. Read More.

About Alphabet

(Get Free Report)

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.