In an SEC filing, Amazon says the split will take place “on or about June 3, 2022” for shareholders of record by May 27, 2022. (That means if you owned shares on the last Friday in May, they'll split on the first Friday in June.) AMZN will begin trading at its new split-adjusted price on Monday, June 6, 2022.
As Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) -2.60% approaches its next stock split, there is one question on everyone’s mind: will the split launch a new wave of gains?
Amazon stock has impressed investors over time – rising over 1,500% in the last ten years. But in recent times, performance has been mediocre. For example, Amazon ended the previous year with little changed.
Amazon is not new to stock splits. The retail giant has held three of them in the past. They were all in a brief period almost two decades ago.
The next stock split May offer some clues as to what might happen, analysts considered the last three developments below. Each of them tracks stock performance in the six months following stock splits.
1. First stock split
Amazon’s first stock split took place on June 2, 1998. Amazon stock rose in the three months following the break, then returned some of the gains before advancing further. Over the entire six-month period, the stock has jumped more than 300%.
2. Second stock split
The company’s second stock split took place on January 5, 1999. The stock immediately rose – then sank. A few months later, he gained some momentum but ended the six months with little changed.
3. Third Share Split
Finally, Amazon’s third stock split was on September 2, 1999. Following the first stock split pattern, the stock rose in the first three months after the trade. Then it fell – and didn’t recover much. At the end of the semester, the stock had only increased by about 4%.
What Does This Mean For Investors?
Should investors be worried after seeing mediocre performance after two of the three previous divisions? Not if you’re a long-term investor, according to analysts.
The only performance linked to the actual split is in the concise term. That is due to new investors entering the stocks or current investors adjusting their positions in the days following the break.
Beyond that point, any gains or losses are not due to the stock split itself. Instead, they’re likely tied to company news — or what’s happening in the economy and how it might affect the company.
It’s also worth noting that Amazon was a very different company in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Two critical parts of Amazon didn’t yet exist. Of course, I’m talking about the Prime subscription service and Amazon Web Services. They were released in 2007 and 2006, respectively.
It’s good to look at the above data and understand how Amazon performed after its previous stock splits. After all, it’s part of the company’s overall history. And more importantly, it shows us that stock splits do not drive a stock’s performance over time.
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$Amazon.com(AMZN)$
In a statement about the quarterly results, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company is focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies, but that this will take time as Amazon continues to address inflationary and supply chain pressures.
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“The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges,” said Jassy. "Today, as we’re no longer chasing physical or staffing capacity, our teams are squarely focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies throughout our fulfillment network. We know how to do this and have done it before. This may take some time, particularly as we work through ongoing inflationary and supply chain pressures, but we see encouraging progress on a number of customer experience dimensions, including delivery speed performance as we’re now approaching levels not seen since the months immediately preceding the pandemic in early 2020.”
$Amazon.com(AMZN)$
Amazon's first-quarter 2022 earnings call is scheduled for April 28, and many investors are tuning in to see if the e-commerce giant deserves a spot in their portfolio. Last month, Amazon's board of directors gave the company the green light to do a 20-for-1 stock split. This move sparked a lot of excitement among investors since the company hasn't done a split since the dot-com boom.
If you've got some extra cash tucked away in your Roth IRA (individual retirement account), you may wonder if you should load up on shares of Amazon. But before you dive in, you should do your research on the underlying business and determine if it makes sense to add the company to your retirement portfolio.
$Amazon.com(AMZN)$
The Nasdaq Composite stock index has undergone its heaviest one-month sell-off since the depths of the global financial crisis, as concerns about rising interest rates and slowing economic growth were exacerbated by softer business updates from tech giants such as Amazon, Apple and Netflix.
The tech-dominated index sank 4.2 per cent on Friday following lacklustre results by Amazon and Apple the previous evening. The move brought the Nasdaq’s April fall to 13.3 per cent, the worst monthly decline since October 2008, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers had rocked financial markets.
$Amazon.com(AMZN)$
Amazon Buys Roomba (IRobot)
Seattle-based Amazon has come a long way as a hardware player since a failed foray into smartphones a few years ago, working diligently to place the Alexa voice software and Echo smart speakers at the center of the burgeoning market for smart-home gadgets. Spoken Alexa commands can already control many other devices, from smart ovens to light bulbs and Roomba vacuums. The partnership between Amazon and IRobot extended beyond devices, too: IRobot runs some of its software on Amazon Web Services servers.
IRobot gives Amazon a household-name in home cleaning gadgets that may give it a leg up over its own designs. Last fall Amazon debuted a household robot that was supposed to usher in—or at least point to—a Jetsons-like future. Called the Astro, the three-wheeled device would eventually sell for about $1,450. But Astro, still in a limited rollout, hasn’t made a splash with consumers
$Amazon.com(AMZN)$
Worth the wait until June 2022.
Shares of Amazon have given up nearly all of their gains from the pandemic.
The stock closed at $2,177.18 on Tuesday, up just .06% from Monday. The last time Amazon traded around these prices was on Feb. 20, 2020, when the stock reached an intraday high of $2,176.79. That's before the name dipped in March 2020 along with the rest of the market during the initial pandemic uncertainty in the U.S. It's more than 40% off from the company's 52-week intraday high of $3,773.08, which it hit July 13, 2021.