The Google IPO Happened 18 Years Ago Today

Each day, Benzinga takes a look back at a notable market-related moment that occurred on this date.

What Happened? On this day in 2004, Google held its initial public offering.

Where The Market Was: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,040.82 and the S&P 500 traded at 1,091.23.

What Else Was Going On In The World? In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. Facebook — now Meta Platforms Inc META — was launched, but the platform was only initially open to Harvard students, other college students in the Boston area and other Ivy League schools. The average price of a new house was $274,500.

Google Goes Public: Google, now known as Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL, finally held its highly anticipated IPO in 2004, six years after it was founded. The company had already become a search juggernaut by that time, and IPO shares were priced at $85 per share for a valuation of $23 billion.

Surprisingly, the IPO auction didn’t go particularly well for Google in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble. Google ended up cutting its planned IPO price from an original range of between $108 and $135 to a new target range of between $85 and $95 before finally settling on the low end of the reduced range.

On Google’s first day of trading, the stock jumped 18%. Google split its stock in a two-to-one split in 2014, and reorganized its company under the Alphabet umbrella in 2015.

It completed a second 20-to-1 stock split in 2022.

IPO investors that have held onto the stock have certainly been rewarded. Over the past 18 years, Google's stock has generated an overall return that's more than 10 times higher than the S&P 500.