Alphabet is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Co. is engaged in its primary business, Google, which comprises of Google Services and Google Cloud segments. Google Services' main products and platforms include Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. Co. also provides advertisers with tools that help them attribute and measure their advertising campaigns. Google Cloud invests in infrastructure, security, data management, analytics and artificial intelligence. Co.'s Other Bets engages in the sales of internet and TV services through Access, as well as licensing and research and development services through Verily.
When researching a stock like Alphabet, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from GOOG Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for GOOG stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of those ways is to calculate a Simpe Moving Average ("SMA") by looking back a certain number of days. One of the most popular "longer look-backs" is the GOOG 200 day moving average ("GOOG 200 DMA"), while one of the most popular "shorter look-backs" is the GOOG 50 day moving average ("GOOG 50 DMA"). A chart showing both of these popular moving averages is shown on this page for Alphabet. Comparing two moving averages against each other can be a useful visualization tool: by calculating the difference between the GOOG 200 DMA and the GOOG 50 DMA, we get a moving average convergence divergence indicator ("GOOG MACD"). The GOOG MACD chart, in conjunction with the chart of the moving averages, basically helps in visualizing how the moving averages are showing convergence (moving closer together), or divergence (moving farther apart). |
Video: Technical Analysis