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To: Danny who wrote (96473)	3/15/2000 2:49:00 AM
From: KeepItSimple	Respond to of 164684

>So why do you need two dates. sigh and we wonder why nobody cares about P/Es anymore. it's not that they dont care, its just that 99% of market participants have absolutely no clue about basic equity concepts.

To: Danny who wrote (96473)	3/15/2000 3:28:00 AM
From: dbblg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>>So why do you need two dates. It made more sense when the bookkeeping was more difficult. On the "date of record" the company figures out who is entitled to the split shares. (In practice, the "owners" from the standpoint of the company are for the most part the brokerages holding the shares for customers in "street name".) Between the date of record and the date of distribution, the shares trade cum dividend (with dividend), so people selling the shares receive the pre-split price, and buyers pay the same. In effect, the sellers are selling the shares plus the right to receive the split, and the buyers are paying the pre-split price because they are buying, along with the usual right to have the shares delivered to them on settlement day, the right to have the split delivered to them on the date of distribution. When the "dividend" (in this case a share-split) is distributed, the company delivers it to the brokerage for whoever they recorded as the owner on the date of record. Their responsibility ends there, whether or not the stock has changed hands in the interim. The brokerage who receives the "dividend" is then responsible for forwarding it to whoever bought the cum dividend shares from its customer, and so on, until the split shares catch up with the rightful owner. It does seem a bit archaic, but, honestly, the whole practice of splitting stock just because the nominal price exceeds a couple of hundred dollars is pretty archaic too. HTH; corrections welcome