5 Companies That Announced Huge Share Buybacks Recently

2. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 155     

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) provides various products and platforms such as Google Services, Google Cloud, and YouTube. In April, the company said it had authorized a $70 billion shares buyback program. In April 2022, the board of directors of the firm had approved a similar $70 billion share buyback program. In 2022, the firm was one of the top firms in terms of share buybacks, only beaten by tech rival Apple. 

On April 23, investment advisory Jefferies maintained a Buy rating on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock and raised the price target to $150 from $130, noting that hyperscalers, data clouds and large differentiated platforms were best positioned to benefit from artificial intelligence. 

Among the hedge funds being tracked by Insider Monkey, Chicago-based investment firm Citadel investment Group is a leading shareholder in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) with 24 million shares worth more than $2.5 billion.

In its Q2 2022 investor letter, Baron Funds, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is the parent company of Google, the world’s largest search and online advertising company. Shares of Alphabet declined 21.6% in the quarter due to concerns about slower global growth impacting the company’s core advertising business. We retain conviction in Alphabet’s merits as it continues to benefit from growth in mobile and online video advertising, which accrues to its core assets of search, YouTube, and the Google ad network. We are further encouraged by Alphabet’s investments in Cloud, AI, and Autonomous Driving (through its Waymo subsidiary).”