The Computershare Investment Plan, a Direct Stock Purchase and Dividend Reinvestment Plan for Cisco Systems, Inc. Common Stock, offers shareholders of record the opportunity to use dividend payments to purchase additional shares with a minimal investment fee. More information about the program can be found on the Personal Investing page. To enroll or to find out more about the program, please contact Computershare Investor Services. In other words, if there is a 6-for-1 split, investors will get a stock dividend of five shares for every one share of Tesla they own. The opposite of stock split is referred to as a ‘Reverse Stock Split’ where the existing number of shares are been merged to reduce the number of outstanding shares.

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Stock Split: Explanation

Now, company XYZ Limited declares the Stock Split in the ratio of 2 for 1 which means that for every 1 share, a shareholder will get 1 more share. In this example, Mr. A is holding Shares, after the stock split his shareholding will increase to shares. Be noted that the price of the share due to stock split will go down and no. of shares will increase.

When you receive additional shares as a result of a non-taxable stock dividend or split, your total basis in your stock remains the same. The basis is divided among the shares you already owned and the new shares in proportion to the value of the shares. In the usual case, where the new shares are exactly the same as the old ones, the value is the same, and basis is allocated equally to each share. Stock dividends are payable in additional shares of the declaring corporation’s capital stock. When declaring stock dividends, companies issue additional shares of the same class of stock as that held by the stockholders.

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Perhaps a corporation does not want to part with its cash, but wants to give something to its stockholders. If the board of directors approves a 10% stock dividend, each stockholder will get an additional share of stock for each 10 shares held. A stock split is the process of subdivision of the outstanding stock units, with no change in the paid-up share capital. It results in a decrease in par value and the outstanding number of shares automatically gets multiplied. It is a non-event, i.e. it does not have any impact on the company’s equity or market capitalization.

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• This is an allocation of an additional number of shares based on the existing percentage of share ownership.
• Stock splits are splitting of already issued shares to increase the no. of shares of the Company.
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• The corporation’s stock is currently selling at $90 per share.
• In other words, since the corporation is the same before and after the stock dividend, the total market value of the corporation remains the same.
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Some firms debit the full amount to the Retained Earnings account in order to reflect the fact that the new shares were distributed as a dividend. As a compromise, the action can be described as a stock split effected in the form of a dividend. The purpose of these activities is generally to law firm bookkeeping stimulate activity in the stock by reducing the trading value of each share, with the ultimate goal of increasing the total value of the shares. Note that this policy may change as the SEC manages SEC.gov to ensure that the website performs efficiently and remains available to all users.

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This goal is fulfilled in either of two ways, by reinvesting cash into the business to stimulate its growth or by paying dividends to shareholders. Tesla wants to split its stock so it can pay a stock dividend to shareholders, according to a filing Monday. The 8 slices of a typical pizza represent the shares of stock and the $2 cost per share is the par value of the stock. When I double cut the pizza, this represents a 2-1 stock split with 16 shares of stock (or slices of pizza) for the new par value of $1 per share. However, if this event is a stock dividend, the stock’s par or stated value will not change, but Retained Earnings will decrease and Common Stock will increase.

This realm is still undiscovered by a large chunk of the population. When we try to go deep into this area, various new concepts come to mind, and we are not very familiar with those concepts. Stock splits and stock dividends are also two of those topics in which we are often confused.

With all other things remaining the same, the stock price will fall. In common parlance, the stock dividend can take the form of a bonus issue. Basically, a bonus issue means the issue of a bonus i.e. extra shares as a reward to the existing shareholders by the company, without any extra price. A company that lacks sufficient cash for a cash dividend may declare a stock dividend to satisfy its shareholders. Note that in the long run it may be more beneficial to the company and the shareholders to reinvest the capital in the business rather than paying a cash dividend.