Micron has been around since the 1970s, joining the stock market way back in 1984. How many shares would you have today, three stock splits later?
Computer memory has been a lucrative business for decades, and Micron Technology (MU -1.94%) was always an important supplier of those crucial chips. The company was formed in 1978, made its first memory chip in 1981, and entered the public stock market in 1984.
Micron soared over the next 20 years. It developed many industry standards and supplied chips to game-changing devices such as home computers in the 1980s and consumer electronics in the 1990s. Along the way, it acquired memory manufacturing operations from technology giants such as Texas Instruments and Toshiba.
Micron’s stock split history
Micron’s stock soared in those giddy days, so the company executed three stock splits between 1994 and 2000. The last one was a 2-for-1 split in the spring of 2000, about two months before the dot-com bubble popped.
Here’s how a single Micron share from before the spring of 1994 evolved into 10 shares in a modern portfolio:
|
Stock Split Date |
Split Ratio |
Total Number of Shares (Starting from 1 share in 1984-1993) |
|---|---|---|
|
April 1994 |
5-for-2 |
2.5 |
|
May 1995 |
2-for-1 |
5 |
|
May 2000 |
2-for-1 |
10 |
Data found and confirmed at Yahoo! Finance and YCharts. Table by author.
The original investment in this case was worth about $25 near Micron’s market debut. Today, the 10 post-split shares add up to roughly $880. That’s a market-beating 3,450% gain in 30 years.
Like many of its tech-sector peers, Micron would not revisit the 2000 peak prices for a couple of decades. The painful experience of splitting just before a massive market crash 22 years ago makes Micron less likely to reach for the share-splitting scissors any time soon.
That being said, Micron broke through that invisible barrier recently. The artificial intelligence (AI) boom should give the stock another push. The shares are still inexpensive in terms of price per share, so investors aren’t exactly clamoring for an immediate stock split. Ask again if and when Micron’s share price climbs closer to $1,000 than $100 per share — which should take years, even in a persistent bull market.
Anders Bylund has positions in Micron Technology. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Texas Instruments. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.