19 August 2004: Google goes public by auction
Google went public at $85 a share through an unusual Dutch auction designed to cut out Wall Street's traditional favoritism. The process was bumpy, the price was lowered, and plenty of commentators sneered. The stock closed its first day around $100 and then climbed for years as search advertising turned into one of the best businesses ever. Some of the most criticized IPOs end up being the best buys.
The lesson: Focus on the quality of the business, not on how awkward or unusual its IPO looked.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Google / Alphabet at the start of 2005 → $41,667 today, vs $5,763 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2005, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 41.7 times the money, and $35,904 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Google / Alphabet teaches: Owning a toll road on a growing activity can be enough; Alphabet's search monopoly kept compounding through crises, lawsuits and repeated predictions of its disruption.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | $4.80 | $41,667 | $5,763 |
| 2007 | $12.00 | $16,667 | $4,789 |
| 2008 | $17.00 | $11,765 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Google / Alphabet? Every starting year and the full story →
More Google / Alphabet history
- 12 January 2010: Google threatens to leave China
- 29 April 2004: Google files to go public, Dutch auction and all
- 10 August 2015: Google reorganizes itself as Alphabet
- 4 September 1998: Google is incorporated
- 20 October 2020: US sues Google over search dominance
- 21 October 2004: Google's first report card as a public company
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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