Pat: Can you comment on why some companies split their shares, while others seem content to let their share prices increase instead? As well, I notice that while Google announced a plan to split its stock earlier this year, it seemed a lot more complicated that a normal split. Can you explain what happened in this specific case, and why don’t the shares seem to have split yet? Thanks.

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

Mechanics of a split: If a stock’s… Read More