What should I know about Alphabet (Google)?

The company now called Alphabet was once known as Google, and many investors and traders still refer to the company as Google. In fact, the stock still trades with the ticker symbol GOOG. However, while Alphabet began long ago as the Google search engine and advertsing platform, it has grown dramatically since, and Alphabet is a conglomerate of far more than just Google. It also includes a cloud computing unit, the popular video website YouTube, and many other subsidiaries related to financing tech startups, human health, artificial intelligence, and innovation.

Is Alphabet (Google) a good stock to trade?

Alphabet is the fifth most popular stock among hedge funds, so you know it sees huge trading volumes. That liquidity also makes it a solid choice for retail investors, who can take advantage of the steady moves higher or lower in the stock. As a fairly mature technology company, shares of Alphabet tend to be less volatile than some of its rivals in the space. That does mean less profit potential, but the volatility is still good enough for short-term traders to collect some solid profits.

What is the best strategy for trading Alphabet (Google)?

The price action of Alphabet makes a trend following strategy a very successful way to trade the stock. Traders can take advantage of the long periods in which the stock trends higher, and can enter new positions following pullbacks. There are several technical indicators that can be used to identify the trends in Alphabet shares, including moving average crossovers, MACD, RSI, and the On-Balance Volume indicator. Traders should also become familiar with the price action indicators such as support and resistance.

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Trading Google Stock

Google is one of the world’s largest companies, and probably one of the best-known globally. As such, its stock’s trading volume is relatively high, making Google one of the ideal candidates for the CFD trading. At AvaTrade, you can trade Google stock on a contract for difference basis on our intuitive and powerful trading platforms.

Google Background

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both PhD students at Stanford University. In January of 2004, the company publicly announced that they would be hiring Morgan Stanley and The Goldman Sachs Group in order to arrange an IPO. The IPO was projected to raise over $4 billion. Google’s initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, and the company was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG. Their IPO was probably one of the most crucial points for the US stock market over the course of the last few decades because it was so heavily anticipated.

Now, 20 years later, Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world and employs over 85,000 people globally. Google’s headquarters, Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California, and is one of the crown jewels of Silicon Valley. Google enjoys a wide variety of revenue sources, two of which include search and advertising which are continuously growing every year. Google also owns and derives revenues from various other internet products, such as Android, Chrome, Google Maps, and YouTube, as well as enterprise cloud services, including digital content and even some hardware products.

Google as a company and their stock

In terms of Google’s stock price history, the initial stock offering in 2004 was a little over 19.5 million shares at the price of $85 a share. In April 2014, Google decided to split its stock and created the A and C shares. As with all other one-for-one splits, the number of shares doubled, and the price halved. Apart from their name, the C and A shares also defer in their ticker; while the C share is marked GOOG, the A shares are marked GOOGL. In August 2015, Google announced their plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet Inc., which would consist of Google, as well as a variety of other businesses including CapitalG and X. As if all these changes weren’t enough, Sundar Pichai, Google’s Product Chief, became the new CEO, replacing founder Larry Page.

As of August 2018, the Alphabet stock price had reached $1245.86 a share! Needless to say, owning Google / Alphabet stock has been a winner for many investors. Interestingly, Alphabet Inc. does not offer any dividends, as it chooses to use their profits to fund and purchase new ventures. Some of these include Waze, a traffic application used by millions of people around the globe, Motorola Mobility, and 6000 Nortel Networks patents. There’s no doubt that Alphabet Inc. has made an impressive number of acquisitions over the past few years and from the looks of it, it will continue to do so in the future.

Google Stock

Google is undoubtedly the search engine king, having wiped out almost all the competition over the years. While there are a handful of competitors, most notably Yahoo, they take up only a fraction of the Internet search traffic. Despite its unrivalled status, Google has had its fair share of controversy. In 2017, The European Union fined the company an astounding €2.42 billion for promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results. The hefty fine and the largest ever doled out by the EU was just a temporary sting. This is because Alphabet, the parent company, made a profit of €2.2 billion during the first six weeks of 2017 alone, plus Google also has favourable tax treatment in most countries. In fact, out of the five largest technology companies, Google pays the lowest amount of taxes in the United States. While many regulatory bodies seek to supervise the company more closely, its growth is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. Google is currently ranked the third most valuable company in the world, behind Apple and Amazon. On the other side of the coin, in October 2005, Google founded a non-profit organisation called Google.org, and committed to investing $100 million annually in grants to non-profit organizations.

Google.org focuses on providing grants to organizations who use technology and data in innovative ways for education, crisis response to natural disasters and health epidemics and well support for racial justice. Google.org is also renowned for hosting regular challenges around the globe to promote innovative use of technology to deal with local issues. Google hosts massive data centres around the world, in North and South America, Asia, and Europe. It has also been a leader in renewable energy, and as of 2017, their data centres have been using both wind and solar power. Google is very much a company at the forefront of technological change, as was the vision by its founders. Today, most hedge funds hold at least some Google stock, because when the tech sector rallies, Google is one of the main stocks out there that will likely affect NASDAQ. Google is also a part of an elite club referred to as ‘FANG’ (short for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) which make up a huge portion of the US_Tech100, based on the NASDAQ itself. The quarterly report released by Google is one of the most heavily anticipated events on Wall Street and attracts a lot of attention from retail and institutional investors alike. Being such a big part of the NASDAQ’s value, Google to some extent, influences the direction of the markets.

Trading Google Stock CFDs

Trading Alphabet Inc. however, is a bit out of reach for many private retail investors as it requires a significant amount of trading capital. At AvaTrade, we understand this barrier and enable you to trade Google shares as a contract for difference. CFDs allow you to speculate on the direction the share price will go without actually purchasing and owning Google stocks. In other words, instead of investing large sums of capital in just a handful of shares, with CFDs you can earn from the stock price fluctuations for substantially less investment amounts.

Google Stock Trading Information

Google Stock Symbol: GOOGL/ GOOG
Hours: 13:30-19:59 GMT
Currency: USD
Leverage up to:

Why Trade Google Stock with AvaTrade

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Google Stocks Trading Main FAQs

What should I know about Alphabet (Google)?
The company now called Alphabet was once known as Google, and many investors and traders still refer to the company as Google. In fact, the stock still trades with the ticker symbol GOOG. However, while Alphabet began long ago as the Google search engine and advertsing platform, it has grown dramatically since, and Alphabet is a conglomerate of far more than just Google. It also includes a cloud computing unit, the popular video website YouTube, and many other subsidiaries related to financing tech startups, human health, artificial intelligence, and innovation.
Is Alphabet (Google) a good stock to trade?
Alphabet is the fifth most popular stock among hedge funds, so you know it sees huge trading volumes. That liquidity also makes it a solid choice for retail investors, who can take advantage of the steady moves higher or lower in the stock. As a fairly mature technology company, shares of Alphabet tend to be less volatile than some of its rivals in the space. That does mean less profit potential, but the volatility is still good enough for short-term traders to collect some solid profits.
What is the best strategy for trading Alphabet (Google)?
The price action of Alphabet makes a trend following strategy a very successful way to trade the stock. Traders can take advantage of the long periods in which the stock trends higher, and can enter new positions following pullbacks. There are several technical indicators that can be used to identify the trends in Alphabet shares, including moving average crossovers, MACD, RSI, and the On-Balance Volume indicator. Traders should also become familiar with the price action indicators such as support and resistance.

As Google continues to innovate and grow, it shows no signs of slowing down, and will probably remain a firm favourite of investors.
Start trading Google CFDs now with AvaTrade!