Don't judge a book by its cover is a proverb that is often used. Don't judge a stock by its share price is a cliché that applies to investors just as well. Many people mistakenly believe that a stock with a low dollar price is affordable and that a stock with a higher price is costly.

 

The price of stock actually doesn't tell us much about how valuable it is. What's more, it says absolutely nothing about whether the stock is moving higher or lower.

 

Stock Value against Price

The riskiest equities are typically those that are the cheapest, or "penny stocks." While a stock that increases from $10 to $20 may double once again to reach $40, a stock that has dropped from $40 to $4 may very easily finish up at $0.

 

Only when numerous other aspects are taken into consideration is looking at a stock's share price relevant. At least on the surface, some of these criteria seem obvious. A business has developed a technology, item, or service that is revolutionary. Another business is cutting costs by terminating employees and eliminating divisions. Which stock would you like to purchase?

 

You might be shocked. Going deeper is beneficial. Whether or not that game-changing business has a strategy to build on its first success is unknown. The worth of that revolutionary product has already been factored into the marketplace. It must be working on something worthwhile.

 

What Price Indicates

The majority of individuals think that a stock's price reflects its value. That's only partially accurate. There is a significant distinction between the two. You can only determine a company's current value or market value from the price of its stock.

 

As a result, the price reflects the market value of the stock or the price reached by a buyer and a seller. The price of the stock will increase if there are more buyers than sellers. The price will decrease if there are more vendors than customers.

 

The intrinsic value, on the other hand, is the actual dollar value of a corporation. This covers both concrete and abstract elements, as well as fundamental analysis's key insights.

 

To ascertain a company's worth, an investor can perform research on it. The company's public financial statements are available online and contain all the necessary details. The results from various sources are analyzed and summarized by online brokerages. Examine the information.

 

When Cost Is Important

Companies can raise money by issuing debt or stock. The cost of debt and the cost of equity for a corporation are weighted together to get the weighted average cost of capital (WACC).

 

Only with respect to a stock's growth potential can it be considered cheap or costly (or lack of it).

When a company's share price falls, its cost of equity increases, which also raises its WACC. A sharp increase in the cost of capital, especially for enterprises that depend on it, like banks, could force them to close. Investors should constantly consider this issue after a significant stock loss.

 

Avoid a price rush

Due to the stock price being the most prominent number in the financial news, investors frequently make the error of focusing exclusively on it. In actuality, it is only meaningful in context.

 

The share price of both firms will be $10, for instance, if Company A has a market capitalization of $100 billion and 10 billion shares, while Company B has a market capitalization of $1 billion and 100 million shares. However, Company A is worth a hundred times as much as Company B.

 

Some retail investors would consider a stock with a $100 share price to be incredibly costly. They could believe that the chances of a $5 stock doubling are higher than those of a $100 stock. However, the $5 stock may be significantly overpriced.

 

Knowing Market Capitalization and Share Price

To create easily recognizable components of a firm, stocks are divided into shares. Then, investors purchase a portion of the company, which is equal to a portion of the entire number of shares.

 

For publicly traded firms, the actual number of outstanding shares fluctuates greatly.

 

Companies can influence the number of shares on the market as well as investor sentiment by using stock splits and reverse stock splits. Companies occasionally use stock splits to appeal to investor psychology since stock prices can have a psychological effect on investors.

 

For instance, many investors choose to purchase stocks in 100-share rounds. The average investor may be put off by a share price over $50 because it necessitates a financial commitment.

 

How Share Splits Operate

A two-for-one split simply implies that the company will divide the current price of its shares in half, doubling the number of shares that each present shareholder will own. One old share will be exactly divided into two new shares.

 

If the shares were $30 each, a novice investor could feel better at ease investing $3,000 to buy 100 shares. Note that for the same $3,000 investment, the investor could have purchased 50 shares prior to the split, giving them the same ownership stake in the business.

 

The present shareholder is happy because more investor interest will result in higher share prices.

 

Market capitalization is significant because of this. The split will not affect the company's market capitalization. Before the split, an investment of $3,000 would have equaled 0.001 percent ownership in the corporation.

 

Procedure for Reverse Splits

Just the opposite of a stock split, a reverse split has its own psychology. Some investors believe that stocks with share prices under $10 are riskier than those with share prices over $10.

 

A corporation may implement a one-for-two reverse stock split to dispel this idea if its share price falls to $6. In this scenario, the business will exchange every pair of outstanding shares for a single share valued at $12 (2 x $6).

 

The fundamentals are the same. Any combination—three-for-one, one-for-five, etc.—can be used to accomplish this. The important thing to remember is that neither does this increase the stock's real worth nor does it alter how hazardous an investment in the firm is.

 

Microsoft vs. Berkshire Hathaway

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is an illustration of a high price that can cause investors to hesitate (BRK.A). A share of Berkshire Hathaway was sold for $340.1 in 1980. Many investors would have hesitated at that triple-digit share price.

 

Berkshire Class A shares are worth $411,230 apiece as of September 30, 2021.

 

2 Because of the company's and Buffett's creation of shareholder value, the stock reached those heights.

 

Would you deem the stock price at such a price per share? As always, the dollar value of the shares has no bearing on the answer to that query.

 

Microsoft is another stock that has produced extraordinary shareholder value (MSFT). Since the company's initial public offering (IPO) in March 1986, its shares have split at least nine times.

 

On its first trading day, Microsoft's opening price was $21.

 

3 As of September 30, 2021, it has a value of $281.92 per share. 4

 

That would seem like a respectable return after more than three decades, but after taking into account all the splits, a $21 investment made in 1986 would be worth much more now. In addition, each share now represents a significantly smaller portion of the corporation as a result of the stock split.

 

Both Microsoft and Berkshire gave investors fantastic profits, although the former had multiple splits while the latter did not.

 

Is one now more expensive than the other as a result of this? No. The underlying fundamentals, not the share prices, should be used to determine whether either should be regarded as costly or inexpensive.

 

Price and Value-Related Factors

Fundamental variables may also have an impact on a stock's price and value. Each of the following matters.

 

Financial Fitness

A company's stock price is affected by its financial health. Strong financial statements and very strong earnings are common characteristics of stocks that perform successfully.

 

Investors assess a company's financial health using this financial information as well as the stock price. Whether or not investors are optimistic about a company's financial future will affect the stock price.

 

Enterprise, Industry, and Economic News

A company's stock price will be impacted by any positive news. Positive earnings news, the introduction of a new product, or a strategy to broaden operations could all be examples.

 

The share prices of companies may also rise as a result of linked economic data, such as a strong monthly jobs report. However, if the news is bad, the share price typically declines as a result.

 

The National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) is what, exactly?

The National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) is a quote that summarizes the highest bid price and lowest ask price for a security across all exchanges or trading venues that are open for business. Therefore, the NBBO stands for the security's tightest composite bid-ask spread.

 

Brokers are required by the Shares Exchange Commission's (SEC) Regulation NMS to purchase and sell securities for customers at the best available ask and bid prices, and to guarantee their customers at least the NBBO stated price at the time of a trade.

 

The National Best Bid and Offer: An Overview (NBBO)

The highest and lowest offers for security from all exchanges and market makers are updated throughout the day on the NBBO. The NBBO displays the lowest ask price and the highest bid price, which are not obliged to match. The best bid and ask prices from a single exchange or market maker are referred to as the "best bid and offer" instead of the NBBO. The lowest ask price and the highest bid price are displayed in the NBBO and are not required to originate from the same exchange. Due to the less open nature of their operations, dark pools and other alternative trading methods might not always show up in these statistics.

 

High-Frequency Trading and NBBO (HFT)

In order to connect directly to exchanges and process orders more quickly than other brokerages, high-frequency traders typically invest in specialist infrastructure. In practice, they do not rely on SIP data for their buy/offer bids and instead profit on the delay between the NBBO's calculation and publication. Whether this permits them to outrun others has been the subject of research.

 

A 2013 University of Michigan study found that traders made up to $21 billion by profiting from this lag. "An HFT algorithm can profit from cross-market differences before they are reflected in the public price quote by anticipating future NBBO, thereby moving ahead of incoming orders to pocket a modest but certain profit. This inevitably leads to an arms race because a trader who is even faster can calculate an NBBO and predict its future "The authors of the study wrote.

 

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