A To Z: How Has Google Traded Since Becoming Alphabet One Year Ago?

It’s been one year since Google surprised and confused the world by re-structuring and re-naming itself Alphabet Inc GOOGL. Google’s core Internet search and advertising business maintained the Google name, but it became just one of a number of divisions within parent holding company Alphabet.

For Google investors, the move didn’t fundamentally change what each share of GOOGL stock represented, and it certainly hasn’t slowed down the company’s performance.

Alphabet’s stock is up 21.5 percent in the year since the re-structuring announcement, producing more than four times the 4.6 percent return of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY during that time. Alphabet shares briefly dipped as low as $593.09 during last August’s flash crash, but shares were back above $700 by the end of October.

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Alphabet then topped $800 for the first time in early 2016, and the company briefly topped Apple Inc. AAPL as the world’s largest company by market cap before relinquishing the title back to Apple.

Alphabet shares had traded mostly sideways in 2016 prior to the company’s Q2 earnings beat sent shares surging to a new all-time high of $813.33 earlier this month.

Google investors likely don’t care what management calls the company or how it is structured if the stock continues to deliver the impressive gains of the past decade. In the past 10 years, Alphabet stock is up 329 percent.