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To: Phil(bullrider) who wrote (198)	1/21/2000 5:07:00 PM
From: The Other Analyst	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 214

The academic research I have in mind is a form of "event studies". You take lots of companies that split, adjust for the overall market activity, and then track the performance before and after the split announcement and/or the split effective date. When the data were graphed, they showed that before the split the stocks did very well, i.e. they beat the market. After the split, there was no detectable difference. The superior performance before the split reflects the fact that companies whose stocks have gone up the most are the most likely to decide to split. The fact that the stocks do not behave differently after the split is why it should not matter to an investor whether the stock splits or not. I am sorry that I do not have the references to these studies at hand. on MSFT vs BRK.A, Gates beat Buffett not because he split his stock more often, but because he created a hugely successful business. Lately Buffett has been suffering because he insisted that he wouldn't invest in anything he didn't understand (that's ok) and he did not understand technology (That is not ok when you are in the money management business and living at a time when technology is 30% of the S&P 500--and that figure counts Yahoo! under consumer nondurables!!)