Stock Split - Effect On Historical Charts

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. Based on this example you might expect to see the stock dropping from $50 to $25.

So what is done is something called adjusted close price. This adjusted close price will take all the closing prices before the split and divide them by the split ratio. So when you look at the charts it will seem as if the price was always $25. Both the Yahoo! historical price charts and the Google historical price charts show the adjusted close prices.

Read more about this topic:  Stock Split

Famous quotes containing the words effect on, effect, historical and/or charts:

    Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    To see distinctly the machinery—the wheels and pinions—of any work of Art is, unquestionably, of itself, a pleasure, but one which we are able to enjoy only just in proportion as we do not enjoy the legitimate effect designed by the artist.
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)

    We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.
    Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)

    There’s one basic rule you should remember about development charts that will save you countless hours of worry.... The fact that a child passes through a particular developmental stage is always more important than the age of that child when he or she does it. In the long run, it really doesn’t matter whether you learn to walk at ten months or fifteen months—as long as you learn how to walk.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)