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To: Jim Greif who wrote (9403)	3/1/2000 12:17:00 PM
From: Tumbleweed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Re Splits ACtually there is no really good financial reason to split a stock until it gets into the many hundreds or thousands of dollars a share, where it conceivably could dissuade small investors from buying because the price of one share is above the amount they could invest. Warren Buffets stock is something like $50k a share because he's never split it (But then again, 2 years ago it was $80k a share...so much for value investing). At the price you mentioned, say $400 its just as easy to buy say 3 shares for a $1200 investment as it is to buy 300 shares at $4 each. However, another factor comes into play which is psychology. Plenty of people think a $100 share is more expensive than a $10 share, and would prefer to buy the $10. They also reason that if both stocks rise a dollar, its a lot more profit on the $10 stock - forgetting the issue of why they might both rise a dollar, since obviously all other things being equal if the $10 stock rises to $11 the $100 stock will rise to $110. Finally, it is true that lots of investors do prefer to have a round number of shares, say 50, or 100, rather than small amounts such as 3 or 7, even though the dollar amount invested might be the same. Somehow it just doesnt 'seem as much' if you only have 3 shares, even if they are $300 each. So, at the end of the day, its really all down to psycholgy, it makes everyone feel better, me included even though I admit its irrational, and it does show confidence that the company is doing well. In effect the management are saying 'our share price is going to climb so much we are just going to have to bring the entry price down'. As to when, its hard to say. Given we have only just had one split, that most people think the market is crazy, and surely there has to be a pull back sometime, my gut feel is that the price might rise quite high, say into the 150's, before they announce another split.BWDIK? Your guess is just as good as anyone else's here. Here's to 100 with double the number of shares by the end of this year. <clink>

To: Jim Greif who wrote (9403)	3/1/2000 2:27:00 PM
From: Binx Bolling	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Brokers, like Fidelity, charge a flat commission based on up to 1000 shares. I imagine they love to see stock splits. If you owned 1000 before the split, you will have to pay more commission when you sell after the split. Every bit of slippage and shrinkage adds up.

To: Jim Greif who wrote (9403)	3/2/2000 4:03:00 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 60323

Jim, companies split their stock, as you note, in order to make it easier for more people to buy shares. Some companies, however, do not believe in splitting their stock. When I bought Berkshire Hathaway for my daughter's account in 1981, it was selling at 295. It eventually went over 60,000 without splitting. Warren Buffett doesn't believe that splits are good because it creates more buying and selling activity. He prefers stockholders like my daughter, who is still hanging in there, except for two shares she sold for a down payment on a house. The more a stock trades below, say $50, the more volatile it is. So there's no guarantee the company will want to split, though it would be easier to do so this time, since additional shares have already been authorized by shareholders. Art