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By Staff Reporters

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DEFINITION: A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a company. For example, after a 2-for-1 split, each investor will own double the number of shares, and each share will be worth half as much. A stock split causes a decrease of market price of individual shares, but does not change the total market capitalization of the company: stock dilution does not occur.

CITE: https://www.r2library.com/Resource/Title/082610254

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EXAMPLE:

Google parent company Alphabet said it would split its stock 20–1. That means in July 2022, Alphabet shareholders will receive 19 more shares for every one that they own. It doesn’t mean they’ll be 20x richer—the price of the stock they hold will drop a proportional amount. If the stock split were to happen now, Alphabet’s share price would fall from $2,865 to $143.

Why does it matter?

In many ways, it doesn’t. A stock split does not change the value of the company. It’s simply a way to increase the number of shares outstanding.

Think of it like slicing a pizza. At a share price of almost $3,000, Alphabet’s slices were a wide a monstrosity. With the stock split, it’s cutting company ownership into smaller portions. But, in the end, the pizza isn’t growing—there are just more slices to be shared.

So why do it? By making the slices of its company smaller, it hopes that more people will look at them and say, “Well I guess one couldn’t hurt.” Alphabet said the goal of the stock split is to attract more small-time investors who might have been intimidated by buying in at such a steep share price.

• Only 27 other stocks in the S&P 500 have share prices above $500 besides Alphabet.

And, there’s evidence this bit of corporate inception can be effective. To see why, let’s look at what happened when two other tech giants, Tesla and Apple, split their stock recently.

• When Apple split its stock 4–1 in July 2020, retail investors upped their purchases from $150 million per week to nearly $1 billion, according to Vanda Research.
• When Tesla split its stock 5–1 in August 2020, retail investing jumped from $30–$40 million/week to $700 million.

There may be another play for Alphabet here—and that is to pad its resume for inclusion in the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average. Because the Dow is weighted by share price (an antiquated system, to be sure), Alphabet at its current price would overwhelm all of the companies. It would become the Alphabet Industrial Average. At $247, it becomes a much more attractive candidate for the Dow.

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Filed under: Funding Basics, Glossary Terms, Investing | Tagged: Alphabet, Apple, google, Investing, stock divide, stock split, stock splits, Tesla | Leave a comment »