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How to buy Alphabet stock
Own Alphabet stock in just a few minutes.
Fact checked
Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) is a leading internet content & information business based in the US. It opened the day at USD$N/A after a previous close of USD$N/A. During the day the price has varied from a low of USD$N/A to a high of USD$N/A. The latest price was USD$N/A (25 minute delay). Alphabet is listed on the NASDAQ and employs 135,301 staff. All prices are listed in US Dollars.
How to buy shares in Alphabet
- Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
- Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
- Search for Alphabet. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: GOOGL. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
- Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Alphabet reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
- Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Alphabet, depending on your broker.
- Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Alphabet. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
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What's in this guide?
- GOOGL shares summary
- Compare share dealing platforms
- Is GOOGL stock a buy or sell?
- Stock performance over time
- Can I short GOOGL shares?
- Is GOOGL suitable for ethical investing?
- Are GOOGL shares over-valued?
- Alphabet's financials
- How volatile are GOOGL shares?
- Does Alphabet pay a dividend?
- Have GOOGL shares ever split?
- Other common questions
Alphabet share price
Use our graph to track the performance of GOOGL stocks over time.Alphabet shares at a glance
Information last updated 2021-03-02.
| Open | USD$N/A |
|---|---|
| High | USD$N/A |
| Low | USD$N/A |
| Close | USD$N/A |
| Previous close | USD$N/A |
| Change | USD$N/A |
| Change % | N/A% |
| Volume | 0 |
Information last updated 2021-02-23.
| 52-week range | USD$1008.87 - USD$2122.4399 |
|---|---|
| 50-day moving average | USD$1915.4595 |
| 200-day moving average | USD$1698.9131 |
| Wall St. target price | USD$2321.05 |
| PE ratio | 34.7634 |
| Dividend yield | N/A (0%) |
| Earnings per share (TTM) | USD$58.613 |
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The value of any investment can go up or down depending on news, trends and market conditions. We are not investment advisers, so do your own due diligence to understand the risks before you invest.
Is it a good time to buy Alphabet stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
Alphabet price performance over time
Historical closes compared with the close of $N/A from 2021-02-25
| 1 week (2021-02-22) | -100.00% |
|---|---|
| 1 month (2021-02-01) | -100.00% |
| 3 months (2020-12-01) | -100.00% |
| 6 months (2020-09-01) | -100.00% |
| 1 year (2020-02-28) | -100.00% |
|---|---|
| 2 years (2019-03-01) | -100.00% |
| 3 years (2018-03-01) | -100.00% |
| 5 years (2016-03-01) | -100.00% |
Is Alphabet under- or over-valued?
Valuing Alphabet stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Alphabet's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
Alphabet's P/E ratio
Alphabet's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 35x. In other words, Alphabet shares trade at around 35x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
Alphabet's PEG ratio
Alphabet's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.459. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Alphabet's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
Alphabet's EBITDA
Alphabet's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$54.9 billion.
The EBITDA is a measure of a Alphabet's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
Alphabet financials
| Revenue TTM | USD$182.5 billion |
|---|---|
| Operating margin TTM | 22.58% |
| Gross profit TTM | USD$97.8 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | 8.65% |
| Return on equity TTM | 19% |
| Profit margin | 22.06% |
| Book value | $329.586 |
| Market capitalisation | USD$1.4 trillion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting Alphabet shares
There are currently 2.9 million Alphabet shares held short by investors – that's known as Alphabet's "short interest". This figure is 16.3% up from 2.5 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Alphabet shares can be evaluated.
Alphabet's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
Alphabet's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Alphabet shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Alphabet shares traded daily (recently around 1.9 million). Alphabet's SIR currently stands at 1.47. In other words for every 100,000 Alphabet shares traded daily on the market, roughly 1470 shares are currently held short.
However Alphabet's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Alphabet shares, or, against the total number of tradable Alphabet shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Alphabet's short interest could be expressed as 0% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Alphabet shares in existence, roughly 0 shares are currently held short) or 0.0095% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Alphabet shares, roughly 10 shares are currently held short).
Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Alphabet.
Find out more about how you can short Alphabet stock.
Alphabet's environmental, social and governance track record
Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like Alphabet.
When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.
Alphabet's total ESG risk score
Total ESG risk: 20.35
Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and Alphabet's overall score of 20.35 (as at 01/01/2019) is pretty good – landing it in it in the 29th percentile of companies rated in the same sector.
ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like Alphabet is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).
Alphabet's environmental score
Environmental score: 3.52/100
Alphabet's social score
Social score: 6.37/100
Alphabet's governance score
Governance score: 7.99/100
Alphabet's controversy score
Controversy score: 4/5
ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. Alphabet scored a 4 out of 5 for controversy – the second-lowest score possible, reflecting that Alphabet has a damaged public profile.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary
Alphabet Inc was last rated for ESG on: 2019-01-01.
| Total ESG score | 20.35 |
|---|---|
| Total ESG percentile | 29.34 |
| Environmental score | 3.52 |
| Social score | 6.37 |
| Governance score | 7.99 |
| Level of controversy | 4 |
Alphabet share dividends
We're not expecting Alphabet to pay a dividend over the next 12 months.
Have Alphabet's shares ever split?
Alphabet's shares were split on a 1998:1000 basis on 3 April 2014. So if you had owned 1000 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1998 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Alphabet shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 49.9% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Alphabet shares which in turn could have impacted Alphabet's share price.
Alphabet share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, Alphabet's shares have ranged in value from as little as $1008.87 up to $2122.4399. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NASDAQ average) beta is 1, while Alphabet's is 0.9899. This would suggest that Alphabet's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).
Alphabet overview
Alphabet Inc. provides online advertising services in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and Latin America. The company offers performance and brand advertising services. It operates through Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets segments. The Google Services segment provides products and services, such as ads, Android, Chrome, hardware, Google Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube, as well as technical infrastructure; and digital content. The Google Cloud segment offers infrastructure and data analytics platforms, collaboration tools, and other services for enterprise customers. The Other Bets segment sells internet and TV services, as well as licensing and research and development services. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
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