Is the only difference between the tickers the ability to vote? All A, B, C are splitting in July, just curious on the groups thoughts or insight!

With that being said, is there a preferred ticker to buy?

TIA!

As the title indicates, I've noticed that Class A (GOOGL) shares of Alphabet stock always trade about 1% lower than Class C shares (GOOG). However, I don't understand as to why this is. As of time of writing, Class is is current $97+ whereas Class A is hivering just under $97.

As far as I can tell, there are two good reasons as to why this shouldn't make sense:

1. GOOGL offers the conventional one share = one voting write whereas GOOG offers no voting writes. This gives GOOGL real world utility and subsequently....from the outside view at least...greater value.

2. Larry Page and Sergey Brin own about 56% of GOOGL, making it an even more scarce asset and theoretically more valuable.

The only logical reason I can think of is that because Larry and Sergey own over 50% of the voting power, there is little reason to own Class A shares....but that surely cannot mean they are still worth less than shares with no voter rights, can it?

Any wisdom you guys can share on why this might be will be useful, as it's something I've wondered about for a while.

Especially since GOOG non voting shares are more expensive than GOOGL voting shares?

The only argument I can see is if Google stops doing buybacks on GOOGL and only does them on GOOG to counteract the number of GOOG shares being unloaded on the market. But other than that why should public shareholders pay more for non voting shares?

I know what the difference between the two is. GOOGL, the class A share has voting rights, while GOOG the class C does not. And the class B shares are not publicly traded.

What I'm curious about is why the class C shares, without the voting rights, have been trading slightly above that of the class A for months now. It used to be that the class A shares had a premium of ~$20 early on (2015). By the start of 2018 that was usually more like $2 and fairly consistent until Oct 2019 when GOOG passed GOOGL for the first time. And outside of a may/june this year, GOOG without the voting rights has been priced above GOOGL with it.

Is this just random? Seems strange.

I get that GOOGL is Class A stock with voting rights and GOOG is Class C stock with no voting rights. I get that Page & Brin own Class B stock which essentially means they will maintain a majority vote, making the Class A voting rights useless. I also get that Google must keep the gap between A and C shares within a certain percentage or pay the C share holders a fee to help close the gap.

But as a retail investor, can anyone explain if I should make a strategic choice between investing in GOOG or GOOGL on a long-term basis?

I've long held both and when would add to my position, would do so in GOOGL. Fast forward a few years and for many recent years, GOOG (Class C) would sell at a premium, presumably because stock buybacks would be done on their Class C shares, and the value of a "vote" you get in GOOGL Class A was not of any value.

However, today, GOOGL has closed at a premium to GOOG (13 cents). Is this somehow related to the BRK disclosure of their investment in Alphabet? Is there suddenly a larger value being ascribed to the "vote" in GOOGL?

Here's the current prices. The difference is small but Class C is a bit more expensive. If anything, I would expect Class A to be always (very slightly) more expensive since it has voting rights.

I know it’s class A or C, but what does ever typically buy? I know A has voting rights and typically is for long investors but can also have front load fees? Just downloaded the Fidelity app, anyone have experience with them with fees?

I currently hold GOOG in my portfolio at 10% and I notice the QQQ and SPY both split google with equal weight in both GOOG & GOOGL.

Would you recommend splitting my Goog shares into both A & C shares? I know A carries voting rights that C shares do not. This would be a long hold in my Roth. Wasn't sure if it was worth splitting up my class C shares. Appreciate your help

Hi, I'm looking into potentially buying some Alphabet stock and I am a little confused as what the benefit is between the 2.

I understand that Class A has voting power and Class C doesn't, but why would you buy Class C instead of Class A? Is one of them a priority for dividend if Alphabet decides to issue it? Right now I don't actually understand why anyone would buy Class C given it over the long term has underperformed Class A.

Can anyone potentially explain this to me?

I’m a relatively new investor (trying to find my way through in this since the beginning of this year). Are there any differences in how Class A and Class C shares perform?

From what I know, one of them has voting rights and other does not. Is there any more to it? In terms of trends, can/should I expect to see almost a 1-1 trend similarity between class A and C shares? TIA

Hey Guys!

Happy Good Friday, as we all know the markets are closed, but I couldn't stop myself looking at potential new opportunities for investments. Upon my search I discovered that Alphabet Inc. (Google) Class A ($1205.03) is actually cheaper than its Class C ($1212.56).

I understand that Class A & B are targeted more toward long term investors and C classes are for those who don't have as much money such as myself but why would class C be more expensive? Could anyone shed some light on this as I'm new to the trading scene and keen to learn!

Cheers Dan.

I understand the difference between Class A and Class C stocks (essentially that being Class A having votes with Class C not, please correct me if I'm wrong or there are further differences).

My question is this. Is there any reason to own both? All my current Google shares are in the Class A stock, as I just see no reason to need both. However, when I view others portfolios, as well as essentially all ETFs that hold Google, they own both.

Why is this and should I add some Class C as well? Apologies in advance if this a dumb question but I couldn't find anything regarding this.

There are 3 classes of Alphabet Inc stock: A, B and C - all representing equal ownership % stakes.

• Class A shares = Regular voting rights. 1 vote each. Publicly/exchange traded.

• Class C shares = No voting rights. 0 votes each. Publicly/exchange traded.

• Class B shares = Super-voting rights. 10 votes each. Privately/non-exchange-traded.

The Class B shares are held only by company insiders. To my knowledge, there are 64 holders in total, though the large majority of them are owned by co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. So despite owning about 9% of Alphabet shares between them, Sergey and Larry control over 50% of shareholder votes.

Although I think it's a good idea for the two of them to be able to steer the company as they see fit, it seems insane to me that they can't be outvoted by the other 90% of shareholders.

Is there any point in Class A shares having voting power at all? The only thing I can think of is that it allows Sergey and Larry to gauge the general opinion of shareholders as a whole and take it into account.

I was trying to buy some Google shares and picked up GOOG instead of GOOGL without checking.
( I simply assumed the more expensive one had voting rights , not that I care about the vote at all )

But since GOOGL is Cheaper & has Voting rights. Would I be better off selling GOOG and repurchasing GOOGL instead?

My understanding is that GOOGL are voting shares while GOOG is not, yet GOOG is trading at $133.60 vs. GOOGL at $132.57. This seems like an arbitrage-able gap, but I've never sold short before. If you sold GOOG short and bought GOOGL with the proceeds wouldn't you expect the gap to close profitably in your favor?

I would assume larger players would be forcing this already, but since GOOG is trading ahead, I must be missing something.

I bought GOOGL around 10 years ago when it was trading at a premium to GOOG because the shares had voting rights. Google then started doing buybacks on GOOG and not GOOGL which caused GOOG to overtake GOOGL in share price which makes sense. Due to what I think was shareholder feedback Google started doing buybacks on GOOGL alongside GOOG.

So my question is, since Google is now doing buybacks on both GOOGL and GOOG, why are the non-voting shares still trading at a premium?

I've seen some people have opinions on which is the better stock to own (if voting rights don't matter to you). Which would you pick?

So here is the quick rundown for Google. It’s currently 3 classes of shares. Class A ($GOOGL), Class B (common stock) and class C ($GOOG). Both class A and class C should have the same value on the markets however the only difference is the Class A ($GOOGL) has 1x value of voting rights. This however is irrelevant as class B owns 10x the voting rights per share and is a majority ownership by Page and Brin. In short, not important.

So now the split. It is defined as an owner of any 3 of the class shares owned in July 1st will receive 19 additional shares on july 15th (20:1 split).

Historically a stock split starts to run 30-60 days prior to stock split (see AAPL or NVDA as recent behemoths to do so). So price action will begin likely in May although this has no physical impact on the company as a whole… or does it?

Opinion piece: I believe that Google is doing this split for 1 main reason, to get onto the Dow Jones industrial average. At a 20:1 split at current prices Google shares will trade at about $130. An underperforming blue chip company in the Dow right now is IBM, which happens to be at $135, making it a relatively easy transfer.

Naturally for funds to balance their portfolio they will buy the incoming company causing the stock price to rise as well once announced.

Given these are hypotheticals, I am also looking at googles growth, and in short their recent earnings has just been a blowout with more to come.

As a result, I will be entering a position of 20 shares of $GOOGL Tuesday morning and cost averaging on a monthly basis until May to put my money where my mouth is.

Feel free to add additional commentary

Edit: Late night accidentally switched $GOOGL and $GOOG on class A vs. class C

Edit 2: preferred ~> common