Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares are trading lower by 2.7% to $167.28 during Monday's session after the stock surged last week on strong earnings.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, last announced a 15% year-over-year increase in first-quarter revenue to $80.539 billion, surpassing the expected $78.594 billion. Quarterly earnings stood at $1.89 per share, exceeding analyst predictions of $1.51 per share.

This marks the fifth consecutive quarter where Alphabet has surpassed analyst estimates in both revenue and earnings...Read More

How To Buy Alphabet Stock

By now you're likely curious about how to participate in the market for Alphabet – be it to purchase shares, or even attempt to bet against the company.

Buying shares is typically done through a brokerage account. You can find a list of possible trading platforms here. Many will allow you to buy 'fractional shares,' which allows you to own portions of stock without buying an entire share. For example, some stock, like Berkshire Hathaway, or Amazon.com, can cost thousands of dollars to own just one share. However, if you only want to invest a fraction of that, brokerages will allow you to do so.

In the the case of Alphabet, which is trading at $167.9 as of publishing time, $100 would buy you 0.6 shares of stock.

If you're looking to bet against a company, the process is more complex. You'll need access to an options trading platform, or a broker who will allow you to 'go short' a share of stock by lending you the shares to sell. The process of shorting a stock can be found at this resource. Otherwise, if your broker allows you to trade options, you can either buy a put option, or sell a call option at a strike price above where shares are currently trading – either way it allows you to profit off of the share price decline.