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Purport that retail investors desire to invest in AAPL or TSLA (both have been reported to split their stock soon), because they think their "future share price" (after the stock split) will skyrocket. Is there a more accurate term for "future share price"? "share price" feels inaccurate if you are disregarding (reverse) stock splits.

Is it "market capitalization"? I know that market capitalization signifies "the total value of all a company's shares of stock. It is calculated by multiplying the price of a stock by its total number of outstanding shares."

To wit, at the moment when stocks split their stock, their "share price" will drop, but their [fill in the blank] ought stay the same.

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  • $\begingroup$ Future share price is exactly that. It's what price will be in the future. It has nothing to do with splits since that pertains to adjusting cost basis per share (split adjusted price) regardless of whether it's a forward or a reverse split. As for your missing word, it should be: "At the moment when stocks split their stock, their "share price" will drop, but their [position cost basis] ought stay the same. And it's not ought. It's will. $\endgroup$
    – Bob Baerker
    Aug 21 '20 at 20:10
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How about "value"? Market capitalization seems fine too.

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The only exact fit I can think of “split-adjusted price.” Since that is the measure given by default by data providers, people drop the “split-adjustment.” If a price was not adjusted for splits, that should be noted.

Market capitalisation is affected by new issuance/buybacks. If a company does a lot of buybacks, the market capitalisation can be constant, while the (split-adjusted) price goes up.

Total return and variations is the best thing to discuss but does not replace price in most sentences.

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Technically the book value of shares is par value times the number of shares outstanding. The stock split is a change in the shares outstanding and a change in the par value of each share recorded on the books of the company.

Market capitalization is an odd metric. One takes the last sale price of shares in the market, which may be trading on thin volume, and then multiplies the outstanding shares by the last sale price. Since the last sale price is moving due to market forces the split adjustment would be made at a moment in time when the shares trade at a specified last sale price.

Market capitalization thus would be constant at the moment just before and just after the split adjustments are made on the books of the company. Data providers make split adjustments to the historic price and volume levels. Look at some historic price volume charts which are not split adjusted. Then look at the same charts which are split adjusted. The split adjusted charts remove discontinuities that appear in the charts which are not split adjusted.

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