In July, Apple’s Board of Directors approved a 4-for-1 stock split “to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors.”
Each Apple shareholder of record at the close of business on August 24, 2020 will receive three additional shares for every share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on August 31, 2020.
Buy what happens if you buy or sell Apple stock today, pre 4-for-1 split?
Dan Caplinger for The Motley Fool:
It’s easy to get confused about what happens if you buy or sell shares between the record date and the split date. Fortunately, understanding how it works is much simpler than understanding why it works that way.
Put simply, if you place a trade anytime between now and close of business on Friday, Aug. 28, then you’ll be trading the pre-split shares. If you buy the stock, you’ll be the one to receive the extra split shares in your account. If you sell the stock, you won’t receive the extra shares after the split. Whomever you sold those pre-split shares to will also get the additional shares.
If you want to trade post-split shares, you’ll have to wait until Aug. 31. After that, all trades will reflect the split.
MacDailyNews Take: After the Apple stock split, expect the dividend per share to simply be 1/4th of the current $0.82, or $0.205. Apple usually announces dividend changes in the spring.
Caplinger notes: “The official split date is on Friday, Aug. 28. After the close of business, shareholders will actually receive the extra shares in their brokerage accounts. For each Apple share you owned prior to the split, you’ll see a total of four shares after the stock split takes effect. However, you shouldn’t necessarily expect the new shares to show up at 4:01 p.m. EDT on Friday. Brokerage companies will handle processing according to their own procedures.”
It’s good to see new Apple investors might get a break on share price into the split if the stock price continues to fall. I had thought the price was going to continue to rise up to the split and then quickly fall due to profit-taking. Again, I was unable to predict how the stock would act. I can understand not buying into the split, but selling into the split doesn’t make any sense to me.
Jim Cramer had advised investors not to buy Apple stock into the split but I didn’t think he has that much influence over investors. Maybe I was also wrong about that. Cramer didn’t say anything about not buying Tesla into the split so I guess he has more respect for Tesla than he does for Apple.
And here’s one unexpected consequence of AAPL’s stock split: According to NPR, Exxon Mobil, the oldest component of the Dow, got kicked out!
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/905818004/exxon-mobil-exits-the-dow-drops-its-oldest-member
So my question is, if I put in an order NOW for what I expect the POST-split price to be, will it get executed at that price after Friday, or will its price also be reduced by 75%?
That’s my question too! The title of this article sounded like it was going to answer that question, but it didn’t. I can’t find the answer anywhere. It’s frustrating.
I bought my Apple share on August 25, 2020. (The article mentioned August 24.) Does that mean that I will not get four shares, and $400 will just vaporise?