Barry, No, I don't think the split is priced in. Though in the real world, a two-for-one split just means you have twice as many shares at half the price, there are a large number of people, many of them followers of a fellow named Wade Cook, who buy stocks/options because they believe stocks run up due to splits. This, of course, causes the stocks to run up ahead of splits. Though generally fundamentals are more important to me than TA, AOL is so far beyond any rational fundamental analysis that fundamentals do no more than give background noise. On fundamentals, in particular discounted cashflow, AOL's worth $40-$60, depending on how you tweek the numbers. Short term, there are so many people playing AOL that is responds reasonably well to TA, another self-fulfilling prophecy.
That said, check out this two year chart. AOL has a nasty habit of running up ahead of earnings. Again and again, people seem to go for the idea that at long last AOL might find the pot of gold.
chart1.bigcharts.com:80/report?r=cobrand&site=dailystocks&onbad=cobrandsymb&symb=AOL&time=9&uf=7168&draw.x=31&draw.y=17&sid=8630&sec=c&xyz=130884688&s=7960
Best,
-Steve |
