Q: I would like your opinion on why it seems companies don’t seem to split their shares as much as they did in the past, when values exceed a threshold amount of, say, $100.00 a share. If they did, it would make it much easier for small investors, like myself, to afford good quality stocks that have become too expensive. Can you explain why it seems that stocks very rarely split these days?

A: When a company splits its shares, it is simply cutting itself up into a different number of pieces, without changing its fundamental value. It wants its stock to trade in a price-per-share range that seems reasonable to investors.

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Apple hurt by slowdown fears

APPLE INC. $181 (Nasdaq symbol AAPL; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.1 billion; Market cap: $923.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.2; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.apple.com) has dropped 22% from its recent peak of $233 in October 2018.
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