Stock split

Last updated

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. [1]

Contents

A company may split its stock when the market price per share is so high that it becomes unwieldy when traded. One of the reasons is that a very high share price may deter small investors from buying the shares. Stock splits are usually initiated after a large run up in share price. [2]

Effects

The main effect of stock splits is an increase in the liquidity of a stock: [3] there are more buyers and sellers for 10 shares at $10 than 1 share at $100. Some companies avoid a stock split to obtain the opposite strategy: by refusing to split the stock and keeping the price high, they reduce trading volume. Berkshire Hathaway is a notable example of this. As of 2023, the company has never split its stock and trades at over US$500,000.

Other effects could be psychological. If many investors believe that a stock split will result in an increased share price and purchase the stock the share price will tend to increase.[ citation needed ] Others contend that the management of a company, by initiating a stock split, is implicitly signaling its confidence in the future prospects of the company. [4]

In a market where there is a high minimum number of shares, or a penalty for trading in so-called odd lots (a non multiple of some arbitrary number of shares), a reduced share price may attract more attention from small investors. Small investors such as these, however, will have negligible impact on the overall price.[ citation needed ]

Split ratios

Ratios of 2-for-1, 3-for-1, and 3-for-2 splits are the most common, but any ratio is possible. Splits of 4-for-3, 5-for-2, and 5-for-4 are used, though less frequently. Investors will sometimes receive cash payments in lieu of fractional shares.

In the above examples ‘y-for-x’ Shows the number of shares before (x) and after (y). Other common reporting nomenclatures are ‘x-y’ and ‘stock dividend’ of [=]y-x. In the above ‘3-for-1’ example (or 1-3 and 2 share stock dividend) would mean a stockholder holding 100 shares (on record date) will receive 200 new shares after the split for those 100 shares.

Example

A company which has 100 issued shares priced at $50 per share, has a market capitalization of $5000 = 100 × $50. If the company splits its stock 2-for-1, there are now 200 shares of stock and each shareholder holds twice as many shares. The price of each share is adjusted to $25 = $5000 / 200. The market capitalization is 200 × $25 = $5000, the same as before the split.

Currency

The analog in currency would be redenomination. This would be where a currency increases in value so that people have to use small fractions. Then a new unit (such as dollar) can be introduced, such that an old unit is equal to 10 (or some number) new units.

An example is with the Australian currency. In 1966 the Australian pound was split into two Australian dollars.

Effect on historical charts

When a stock splits, many charts show it similarly to a dividend payout and therefore do not show a dramatic dip in price. Taking the same example as above, a company with 100 shares of stock priced at $50 per share. The company splits its stock 2-for-1. There are now 200 shares of stock and each shareholder holds twice as many shares.

The price of each share is adjusted to $25. As a result, when looking at a historical chart, one might expect to see the stock dropping from $50 to $25. To avoid these discontinuities, many charts use what is known as an adjusted share price; that is, they divide all closing prices before the split by the split ratio. Thus, when looking at the charts it will seem as if the price was always $25. Both the Yahoo! historical price charts [5] and the Google historical price charts [6] show the adjusted close prices.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dividend</span> Payment made by a corporation to its shareholders, usually as a distribution of profits

A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-invested in the business. The current year profit as well as the retained earnings of previous years are available for distribution; a corporation is usually prohibited from paying a dividend out of its capital. Distribution to shareholders may be in cash or, if the corporation has a dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of further shares or by share repurchase. In some cases, the distribution may be of assets.

Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources to achieve later benefits". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Price–earnings ratio</span> Financial Metric

The price–earnings ratio, also known as P/E ratio, P/E, or PER, is the ratio of a company's share (stock) price to the company's earnings per share. The ratio is used for valuing companies and to find out whether they are overvalued or undervalued.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporate action</span> Event initiated by a public company


A corporate action is an event initiated by a public company that brings or could bring an actual change to the securities—equity or debt—issued by the company. Corporate actions are typically agreed upon by a company's board of directors and authorized by the shareholders. For some events, shareholders or bondholders are permitted to vote on the event. Examples of corporate actions include stock splits, dividends, mergers and acquisitions, rights issues, and spin-offs.

The dividend yield or dividend–price ratio of a share is the dividend per share divided by the price per share. It is also a company's total annual dividend payments divided by its market capitalization, assuming the number of shares is constant. It is often expressed as a percentage.

A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market.

In financial markets, stock valuation is the method of calculating theoretical values of companies and their stocks. The main use of these methods is to predict future market prices, or more generally, potential market prices, and thus to profit from price movement – stocks that are judged undervalued are bought, while stocks that are judged overvalued are sold, in the expectation that undervalued stocks will overall rise in value, while overvalued stocks will generally decrease in value. A target price is a price at which an analyst believes a stock to be fairly valued relative to its projected and historical earnings.

Enterprise value (EV), total enterprise value (TEV), or firm value (FV) is an economic measure reflecting the market value of a business. It is a sum of claims by all claimants: creditors and shareholders. Enterprise value is one of the fundamental metrics used in business valuation, financial analysis, accounting, portfolio analysis, and risk analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilshire 5000</span> Stock market index

The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, or more simply the Wilshire 5000, is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the market value of all American stocks actively traded in the United States. As of September 30, 2023, the index contained 3,427 components. The index is intended to measure the performance of most publicly traded companies headquartered in the United States, with readily available price data. Hence, the index includes a majority of the common stocks and REITs traded primarily through New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, or the American Stock Exchange. Limited partnerships and ADRs are not included. It can be tracked by following the ticker ^W5000.

A rights issue or rights offer is a dividend of subscription rights to buy additional securities in a company made to the company's existing security holders. When the rights are for equity securities, such as shares, in a public company, it can be a non-dilutive pro rata way to raise capital. Rights issues are typically sold via a prospectus or prospectus supplement. With the issued rights, existing security-holders have the privilege to buy a specified number of new securities from the issuer at a specified price within a subscription period. In a public company, a rights issue is a form of public offering.

In finance, an investment strategy is a set of rules, behaviors or procedures, designed to guide an investor's selection of an investment portfolio. Individuals have different profit objectives, and their individual skills make different tactics and strategies appropriate. Some choices involve a tradeoff between risk and return. Most investors fall somewhere in between, accepting some risk for the expectation of higher returns. Investors frequently pick investments to hedge themselves against inflation. During periods of high inflation investments such as shares tend to perform less well in real terms.

In finance, return is a profit on an investment. It comprises any change in value of the investment, and/or cash flows which the investor receives from that investment over a specified time period, such as interest payments, coupons, cash dividends and stock dividends. It may be measured either in absolute terms or as a percentage of the amount invested. The latter is also called the holding period return.

In finance, a reverse stock split or reverse split is a process by which shares of corporate stock are effectively merged to form a smaller number of proportionally more valuable shares.

The S&P/ASX 200 index is a market-capitalization weighted and float-adjusted stock market index of stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The index is maintained by Standard & Poor's and is considered the benchmark for Australian equity performance. It is based on the 200 largest ASX listed stocks, which together account for about 82% of Australia's share market capitalization.

A capitalization-weightedindex, also called a market-value-weighted index is a stock market index whose components are weighted according to the total market value of their outstanding shares. Every day an individual stock's price changes and thereby changes a stock index's value. The impact that individual stock's price change has on the index is proportional to the company's overall market value, in a capitalization-weighted index. In other types of indices, different ratios are used.

Share repurchase, also known as share buyback or stock buyback, is the reacquisition by a company of its own shares. It represents an alternate and more flexible way of returning money to shareholders. When used in coordination with increased corporate leverage, buybacks can increase share prices.

The S&P/ASX 300, or simply, ASX 300, is a stock market index of Australian stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The index is market-capitalisation weighted, meaning each company included is in proportion to the indexes total market value, and float-adjusted, meaning the index only considers shares available to public investors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock market index</span> Financial metric which investors use to determine market performance

In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Share price</span> Term in finance

A share price is the price of a single share of a number of saleable equity shares of a company. In layman's terms, the stock price is the highest amount someone is willing to pay for the stock, or the lowest amount that it can be bought for.

VN30 Equal Weight Index tracks the total performance of the top 30 large-cap, liquid stocks listed on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange along with two popular indices in Vietnam: VN Index and VN30 Index. All index constituents are equal-weighted to help investors deal with liquidity, foreign ownership and state-owned enterprise constraints when investing in Vietnam.

References

  1. "Stock Splits". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 2010-03-29. Retrieved 2014-06-05.
  2. "Why Do Companies Split Stocks? - ModernAgeBank". 2023-11-24. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  3. Saldanha, Ruth (August 18, 2020). "What is a Stock Split?". Morningstar.ca. Retrieved August 19, 2020.
  4. "COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
  5. Yahoo Finance Historical Charts
  6. Google Finance Historical Charts