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Alphabet's market capitalization is generally listed as the market cap of GOOG, such as in this Wikipedia top companies list. But GOOGL has about the same market cap. Why are they not combined for Alphabet the company? Are they linked in some way behind the scenes that makes summing redundant? And does the same hold for the other stocks with two ticker symbols (four more in S&P 500)?

(I know there is a similar sounding question, Correct Alphabet market cap calculation, but I think that one's more about discrepancies in the numbers rather than the summing.)

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    $\begingroup$ They should be summed together...and they should include the share class that Larry and Sergei have as well. The total market cap is in the high $600s of billion. $\endgroup$
    – FinanceGuyThatCantCode
    Jun 2, 2017 at 1:14
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks -- apparently my data source is reporting the full $600+B market cap for both GOOG and GOOGL, and I was summing those which didn't agree with anything I saw elsewhere. $\endgroup$
    – xan
    Jun 2, 2017 at 1:44
  • $\begingroup$ Your data source is doing the best thing by making it so either ticker gives you back the market cap. The market cap is not based on one share class. It is based on all shares across all share classes and Alphabet has three share classes. $\endgroup$
    – FinanceGuyThatCantCode
    Jun 2, 2017 at 1:55
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    $\begingroup$ I thought that would be the case but I was thrown off because it has a different market cap for GOOG and GOOGL ($10B difference). Now my only explanation is that they weren't computed for the same instance in time. $\endgroup$
    – xan
    Jun 2, 2017 at 1:59
  • $\begingroup$ Goog and googl are not the same. Googl are class A shares and include voting rights(one vote per share), while goog are class C shares and have no voting rights. The class c shares were issued after their stock split, and as a result of a class action suit coming out of that goog holders will be compensated by Google if there's a significant difference between the two. You can Google "goog vs googl" and it has all the info. There are also class B shares, held by the founders, they have 10 votes per share and are to help prevent activist investors. $\endgroup$
    – will
    Jun 2, 2017 at 7:48

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I will answer your question with another question. Being that there are class B stocks that are not publicly traded and have 10x the voting power how do we calculate those stocks being that that they are not publicly traded? The way we deal with this is not to take voting power into consideration when valuating the market cap. So when looking at class A stocks we look at it as if all the stocks are class A stocks and when looking at class C stocks we look at it as if all stocks are class C stocks, hence the discrepancy.

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