Amazon.com’s share price is likely to go from nearly $3,000 to less than $150 as a result of the split.
Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Amazon
.
com announced a stock split just over a month after Alphabet did the same.
AutoZone
,
Tesla
,
BlackRock
,
and
O’Reilly Automotive
could each be next.
Amazon’s (ticker: AMZN) stock split, unveiled on Wednesday evening, is 20 for 1, meaning that every share becomes worth 5% as much. The stock was at $2,931 on Thursday, so the price of a share would go to just over $146 when the split goes into effect May 27, if the price remained stable.
Remember, the stock split itself doesn’t lift Amazon’s market value of $1.48 trillion. The split increases the number of shares, while the market capitalization remains in place, lowering the share price.
But these splits usually do drive money into a stock because retail traders–those on popular trading platforms like
RobinHood
and TD Ameritrade–can buy more shares at the lower level. They don’t have the kind of deep pockets seen at institutional funds, which don’t pay attention to the absolute price of a stock.
That could be why Amazon’s stock price Thursday afternoon was 4.4% above the level on Wednesday.
Amazon’s split comes just after Alphabet’s (GOOGL) 20-for-1 stock split announced in early February. That split will take effect on July 15. If Alphabet were still trading at Thursday’s price of $2,622 at the point, each share would be priced at $131.
More stock splits could easily be on the way.
Bank of America
data show that about 15% of the S&P 500’s total market capitalization is represented by stocks that trade for at least $500–a level that could be high enough to make a split worthwhile.
Thursday afternoon,
Booking Holdings
(BKNG) was trading at $2,007 a share, while
AutoZone
(AZO) was at $1,865, and Chipotle (CMG) sold for $1,451. Tesla (TSLA) was at $813, BlackRock (BLK) at $697 and O’Reilly Automotive (ORLY) at $670.
Those are the stocks with the highest prices on Bank of America’s list. None of the companies immediately responded to a request for comment.
Stocks do tend to perform well just after a split. Historically, the average gain three months after a split is 7.8%, which beats the S&P 500’s average 2.1% gain in that time, according to Bank of America. Barron’s had noted the strong gains stocks exhibit after Alphabet disclosed its split in February of this year.
Keep an eye out for more announcements.
Write to Jacob Sonenshine at jacob.sonenshine@barrons.com
