How To Buy Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock In 2023 | Step-By-Step Guide

Throughout this guide, we will provide you with a comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to buy Alphabet stock in 2023. We will break down the Alphabet stock buying process and tell you everything you need about the company and its shares. But more importantly, we will help you decide if it is worth buying today.

Note that Alphabet is the parent company of Google. It is a world-renowned brand – mainly because of its flagship search engine – Google Chrome – and the all-popular mobile phone operating system – Android.

Keep reading to learn where to buy Alphabet stock, how it has performed in the past, and if it is worth buying.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

In the sections that follow, we will explain the above Alphabet stock buying process in detail. We will tell you about the best Alphabet share brokers, learn more about Alphabet companies and stock, and check the pros and cons of investing in Alphabet stock in 2023.

Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock Buying Process Reviewed

Step 1: Choose A Regulated Stock Broker

There currently are thousands of online trading platforms that list Alphabet stock. When vetting these and searching for the best Alphabet share broker, one of the critical factors you want to consider is their regulation status. Only create a trader account with a regulated brokerage.

Other factors to consider when searching for the best share broker include the following:

• Trading fees: The best Alphabet share broker should maintain highly competitive trading costs – these refer to the trading charges like commission and spreads as well as non-trading charges like swap fees and deposit/withdrawal fees. Avoid share brokers who maintain exploitatively high fees and charges.
• Reputation: Your preferred share broker should also have a high reputation for reliability, customer service, and efficiency.
• User-friendliness: The best Alphabet share broker should also maintain a user-friendly trading interface. It should be navigable and easy to use for both beginners and PRO investors.
• Access to tools: In addition to user-friendliness, the best Alphabet share broker must also integrate as many advanced trading, analysis, market research, and risk management tools. These include premium business/financial news and reports, economic calendars, hard stop loss, charting tools, and negative balance protection.

To help you identify the share trading platform, we vetted hundreds of share brokerages available today and came up with what we consider the best share brokers in 2023. These are:

eToro – Best Alphabet (GOOGL) Broker for User Friendliness and Copy/Social Trading 

eToro is one of the most popular multi-asset online trading platforms. It is also one of the most regulated share brokerages, licensed by virtually all the top-tier regulatory agencies, including the SEC, FCA, ASIC, and CySEC. We consider it the best Alphabet share brokerage in 2023 because of its user-friendliness – as evidenced by its highly intuitive user interface and one of the most straightforward client onboarding processes.

To start buying and selling Alphabet shares on eToro, you need to make a $10 deposit first. And eToro supports one of the widest ranges of deposit and withdrawal methods. Deposits are free, but withdrawals attract a $5 processing fee. And you can only withdraw a minimum of $30. The only other fees you have to contend with when using eToro are the highly variable spreads and swap fees for overnight trades because the broker charges no commission.

In addition to this affordability and intuitive interface, we feature eToro here because it supports social and copy trading tools. Social trading allows for smooth interactions between eToro platform users, both beginners and experts. Copy trading, on the other hand, is a passive investing tool. It lets beginners earn passively when they copy the trade settings of highly successful investors. Expert investors, on the other hand, earn a commission based on assets under copy.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

Capital.com – Best Alphabet (GOOGL) Broker for Innovative Trading Interface

Capital.com is a massively popular pure-CFD online trading platform. It is also a multi-asset trading platform, listing such financial instruments as stocks, crypto, indices, and ETFs. Like eToro, it maintains a smooth client onboarding process. But unlike eToro, which supports the trade of both actual Alphabet shares and Alphabet share CFDs, you can only trade CFDs on Capital.com.

Capital.com is a commission-free brokerage which implies that when buying Alphabet shares on the platform, you will only pay a highly variable spread. It also supports margin trading and will let you trade Alphabet stock with leverages of up to 1:5.

But if these trades remain open overnight, you will incur variable and highly competitive swap fees. And to start trading, you only need to deposit a minimum of $20 via either of the multiple deposits/withdrawal supported by the platform.

But we consider Capital.com the best Alphabet share broker in 2023 primarily because of its highly innovative trading interface. It, for instance, gives you access to 70+ technical indicators, multiple charting tools, and such risk management tools as stop loss and negative balance protection.

Capital.com’s trading platform was also among the first to embrace artificial intelligence and apply it in post-trade behavior analysis. It, therefore, comes in handy for traders who are looking to eliminate bias in their trades.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

Step 2: Research The Alphabet Stock

Now that you know where to buy Alphabet stock, it now is time to gather as much information about the company and the shares that you are about to purchase.

In this section, we will tell you what Alphabet is and how it works before going over the historical price performance of these GOOGL shares.

What is Alphabet?

Alphabet is a US-based multinational technology company. It is the holding company Google – the all-popular and by far the world’s largest search engine.

Alphabet traces its roots to the establishment of the Google search engine in 1998. The holding company only came about in August 2015 when Google co-founder announced a restructuring plan for Google. This established the Alphabet Inc. entity that would serve as the holding company for Google and all its other subsidiaries.

Today, the holding company has morphed into the world’s third-largest technology company by revenue. And at the time of writing, Alphabet is the fourth most valuable company – with a market cap of $1.3 Trillion. Plus, it is one of the big five American technology companies alongside Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.

It is also important to note that Alphabet shares – GOOGL – are a constituent of most US and International share indexes and mutual funds, including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.

How Does Alphabet Work?

As we have stated hereinabove, Alphabet Inc. is the holding company for Google and Google subsidiaries. The subsidiaries here refer to hundreds of companies that Google has either created or acquired over the years.

Some of Alphabet’s flagship brands include the all-popular Google Chrome search engine, which accounts for more than 70% of global searches (except in China).

Alphabet also wholly owns YouTube – the online video-sharing and social media platform. It is the second most visited website in the world, attracting more than 2.5 billion unique monthly users who watch more than one billion hours of video content daily. Additionally, it is also one of Alphabet’s biggest income generators, earning the company close to $29 Billion in advertiser revenue in 2021.

Additionally, Alphabet owns the Android mobile operating system. Launched in 2007, Android has gobbled more than 70% of the global smartphone market share - with as much as 1 billion Android phones having been sold in 2021 alone.

Other equally popular flagships under the Alphabet Inc. umbrella include Google Maps, Pixel, Drive, AdSense, Google Workspace and cloud platforms, Nest, Google Play (app store hosting more than 2 million Android-based smartphone applications), and more.

Alphabet Stock Price History

Google went public in August 2004. Over 19 million GOOGL shares were availed to the public at a price of $85. This IPO raised $1.67 Billion, effectively giving Google a market cap of $23 Billion. At the time of going public, the world was just coming to terms with the dot.com market crash that had made technology and software stock hugely unpopular. This explains Google’s uninspiring price action in the first few years of going public.

In fact, it can be said that Alphabet stock performed rather dismally in the first 10 years after listing. It only started posting meaningful gains after the 2015 restructuring that birthed the Alphabet holding company and a 2-to-1 stock split.

Between 2016 and 2021, Alphabet stock posted its most aggressive value gain yet, with the stock more than doubling its stock price during the period. The year 2021 was especially a good year for technology stocks and saw Alphabet stock gain close to 70%. 

Much of these gains would have been eroded throughout the year 2022, with the stock losing as much as 40% of its November 2021 peak prices in the last 12 months. Much of this value gain may be attributed to the rising inflation and interest rates as well the bearish sentiments of a possible economic recession.

These trace their roots to the monetary and fiscal policies taken by national governments during the covid-19 pandemic but have also been exacerbated by the oil and gas crisis caused by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Not forgetting that Alphabet also recently concluded its 20-to-1 stock split. And all these have GOOGL shares trading around $100 today.

Factors Affecting Alphabet’s Stock Price

This far, you have learnt where to buy Alphabet shares and every important detail about Alphabet Inc.’s company structure, how it works, and its historical price action. And one of the biggest takeaways from the above GOOGL historical share price action is that Alphabet stock is mildly volatile.

If you are still looking forward to investing in Alphabet stock or trading its CFDs, it is important that you understand the factors influencing its price action. In this section, we discuss the five factors that have the biggest influence on Alphabet stock’s price action and tell you how to price them.

• Company revenues: A company’s profitability is one of the best metrics for determining if it has a positive or negative future outlook. A profitable brand is perceived as having a promising future, which makes it appealing to long-term investors. Alphabet belongs in this country as its many subsidiaries have kept its year-on-year revenues on an uptrend.
• Industry performance: The performance and direction of the industry or sector to which a company falls belongs will also impact its share prices. Alphabet share prices will, for instance, rally when technology stock rally and dip when they crash.
• Financial strength: It is not enough to check a company’s profitability when assessing its financial health. You also need to consider such other indicators as its debt-to-equity ratio, price-per-earning, and quick ratios. A company with healthy financials is considered more resilient and thus an attractive investment.
• Future outlook: You also need to consider a company’s future outlook. Check the sustainability of its business model. Additionally, confirm if there are possible mergers or acquisitions on the horizon, if there are possible new product launches, or even a change in leadership. All these have a positive impact on a company’s share price – and vice versa.
• Macroeconomic factors: In addition to checking the internal and industry-wide factors, you will also want to examine the national/global economic and political developments. These, too – with examples including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and reduced oil production – will also have a near-direct impact on GOOGL stock prices.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

Step 3: Open A Share Investor Account And Buy Alphabet Stock

Everything you have learnt in the above sections in this guide was prepping you for this next part – the actual GOOGL share buying process.

Here, we will provide you with a beginners guide to buying your first Alphabet stock on the all-popular eToro share brokerage:

1. Register a share investor account

Open the official eToro website on your browser or download the eToro app and click on the “Join Now” icon. Complete the registration form that pops up. It will ask for such personal details as your name and email address, phone number and country of residence, and trading experience.

2. Verify your identity

Note that eToro is a multi-regulated brokerage. It will, therefore, demand that you verify your identity before you can start depositing and trading on the platform. Simply submit a copy of your driving license, national ID, or passport.

3. Fund the account

eToro will send you an email notifying you that your account has been approved. Log in to your account and, on the user dashboard, tap on the “Deposit Funds” button. On the funding tab that pops up, click on one of the supported payment options and follow the prompts to make a deposit. Remember that the minimum you can deposit here is $10 - and the broker only supports USD.

4. Find Alphabet stock

Once the payment reflects in your eToro share broker account, click on the ‘Discover’ tab to reveal the supported assets. Click on “Stocks” and find Alphabet (GOOGL) from the list of supported shares.

5. Buy Alphabet shares   

Click on the “BUY” option on the Alphabet shares. On the trading tab that pops up, customize the trade by indicating the number of GOOGL shares you wish to buy or the amount of cash you wish to spend on the investment. Click on the “Open Trade” button to execute the transaction.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

Alphabet Stock Strengths & Weaknesses

Still haven’t decided if Alphabet stock is worth buying in 2023. The following should help you arrive at an informed investment decision.

Here, we explore three reasons why Alphabet (GOOGL) stock is worth buying now and two reasons why you may possibly want to add to your watchlist and monitor its progress over the next few months first:

BUY: Potential for positive capital growth

Alphabet has an overall uptrending total revenues and share price action. It has also rapidly expanded its conglomerate, tapping into some of the fastest-growing technology niches like cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These are expected to continue pouring into Alphabet’s revenue basket in the foreseeable future, pushing up its share price and – by extension – your capital investment in the company.

BUY: Massively resilient

Google has proven its resilience by withstanding two economic crashes (the dot-com bubble and the 20007/8 market crash) and an extended period of economic stagnation (covid-19 pandemic). It is even categorized among the best recession stocks because of its ability to preserve value during an economic crisis or post one of the fastest rebounds as soon as the market shows recovery signs.

BUY: Robust growth by subsidiaries

Today, Alphabet is home to more than 100 subsidiaries. Most are in their nascent stages and are expected to blow up soon and morph into the biggest technological outfits of the future. This makes Alphabet a sustainable and massively promising brand worth buying at its current dip.

SELL: Stiff competition

Alphabet’s flagship projects and top revenue earners face stiff competition from such emerging search engines as brave, and video content streaming survives providers like TikTok and Meta. Its futuristic projects like cloud computing and artificial intelligence also have to compete against such worthy opponents as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alibaba, and Tesla.

SELL: Revenue concentrated on Google and YouTube

Google search engine and YouTube account for close to 85% of all Alphabet’s total. This concentration of business on just two subsidiaries is rather risky, especially when you consider the mounting levels of competition against said subsidiaries.

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Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

Conclusion: How To Buy Alphabet Stock In 2023

There goes everything you need to learn about how to buy Alphabet stock in 2023. Hereinabove, we provided you with a detailed step-by-step process for investing in GOOGL stock. We started by telling you what to look for in a good share trading platform and introduced you to the best Alphabet share brokers around. We then proceeded to analyze the Alphabet Inc. holding company and went over the historical price performance of GOOGL stock.

Lastly, we provided you with a beginner’s guide on how to start investing in Alphabet stock on the eToro trading platform. Even more importantly, we helped you arrive at an investing decision by informing you of the factors affecting Alphabet’s share price. We even argued for and against buying Alphabet shares today.

eToro – Buy Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock Today

Your capital is at risk. Other fees apply.

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