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Comment by paulyacoubian | Hacker News Reader

The high stock price directly signals the power of compounding. If you split it down to $10 per share the lesson of buying and holding is lost.

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"[S]ignals the power of compounding" -- only to unsophisticated (frequently, retail) investors. Institutional investors always have historical data that is split-, and even dividend-, adjusted. If I had to guess, refusing to split is like a form of virtue signalling, nothing more. When I was a kid, IBM usually had a high stock price, over 100 USD. I never understood why; nor did my father, a stock broker.

Not really? Everyone would look at the split adjusted price for the past?

I know plenty of people who dont understand that 100 $1 stocks is the same as 1 $100 stock

It’s not the same. Depends on total shares.

No one likes messing with stuff that’s never gonna move, doesn’t matter if it’s $1 of $100, it might as well not even be an investment opportunity.

The returns on these high priced and low volume stocks will always be shit.

nope, the lower number tricks your mind.

How is the lesson lost?

Don't you own the same amount after the split?

Isn't the total value of compounding the same after x year?

I feel like I am either missing something big or Buffett just has one of those "I'm gonna do it my way b/c" things here.

And since I am a fool with finance I must be missing something big :)

"Unsophisticated" investors see the big number and the price history (which is much simpler without splits) and see the power of compounding plainly. There's not much more to it than that.

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