The Split
There are two listed share classes of Alphabet, each with its own ticker symbol. GOOG shares are Class C shares with no voting rights, while GOOGL shares are its Class A shares, often known as common stock, which have the customary one-share-one-vote structure.Earlier in February, Alphabet announced its intention to split the stock, and shareholders voted in favor of the split in June. When Ruth Porat, the company’s chief financial officer, was asked why the company is splitting the stock, she said, “The reason for the split is to make our shares more accessible, we thought it made sense to do so.”
The Meat
Class C and Class A shares are trading at around $2300 right now—$2,268.70, and $2,248.63, respectively.The 20–1 split means that if an investor owns one share of either class—they will receive 19 shares after the split while keeping the one share, bringing the total to 20.
If the stock were to split right now, Class C shares will be worth $113.43, and Class A shares would be worth $112.43.
This opens the door for retail investors, who had been priced out of purchasing the tech stock, to invest what they can into the company. It also could lead to Alphabet joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Google joins other major tech stocks like Amazon.com Inc., and Shopify Inc. to perform a stock split in 2022, however, let’s take a peek at what happened after these companies completed their stock splits.
On June 6, Amazon’s stock split 20 to 1; after the split, the stock has fallen 12.54 percent.
Since the split was finalized on June 29, Shopify’s stock price has dropped 3.21 percent.
Alphabet’s stock is down 21.21 percent so far this year, Amazon is down 35.28 percent, and Shopify has lost 76.45 percent of its value.
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