Google Stock

Trade 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 market. At Friedberg Direct, you can trade Google stock on a contract for difference basis on our intuitive and powerful AvaTrade-powered trading platforms.

Google Stock Trading Information

• Google Stock Symbol:  GOOGL/ GOOG
• Hours:  13:30-19:59 GMT
• Currency:  USD
• Leverage:
• Minimum trade size: 1

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 its 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 its 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 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, 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 that use technology and data in innovative ways for education, crisis response to natural disasters and health epidemics, and 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 the 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 NASDAQ index 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 large 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 Friedberg Direct, 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.

Why Trade Google Stock with Friedberg Direct

• Fully regulated broker offering a wide range of useful trading tools, services and features
• Leveraged trading on CFDs, giving you the opportunity to trade stocks with a low capital outlay
• Direct access to global equity markets on an intuitive trading platform
• Take short or long positions
• Competitive spreads
• Safe and secure deposits and withdrawals
• Professional and responsive technical support team available in your language
• Start trading with just

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 Friedberg Direct!