"Apple closed its first trading day in 1980 at $22." The sentence is true and almost a lie at the same time. If you look up Apple's December 12, 1980 close on Yahoo Finance today, the number you'll see is under $0.10. Same company, same date — two very different numbers. Why?

The answer is the stock split. When a company splits its shares, charting tools redraw all historical prices backward at the split ratio so the line stays continuous across the split date. That "split-adjusted price" is what shows on a modern chart — and confusing it with the price actually printed in newspapers at the time is one of the most common reading errors in equity history.

What a stock split actually does

A stock split splits one share into multiple shares and divides the price by the same ratio. A 4-for-1 split turns one share into four, and the price drops to one-fourth. The company's market cap and a shareholder's total value don't change — only the share count grows.

The motivation is usually one of two things: a price that's gotten high enough to feel inaccessible to small investors, or a desire to lower a psychological barrier to entry. The intrinsic value doesn't change, but trading volume and new-account buying activity often pick up around the event.

Five iconic splits and how they redrew the chart

1. Apple — cumulative 224x
1987 (2-for-1), 2000 (2-for-1), 2005 (2-for-1), 2014 (7-for-1), 2020 (4-for-1). One share at the 1980 IPO would today equal 224 shares. That's why "the IPO close was $22" doesn't match the modern chart, which shows the same point in low cents.

2. Tesla — 5-for-1 in 2020, 3-for-1 in 2022
Just before the August 2020 split, Tesla traded near $2,200; immediately after, around $440. The chart shows the price collapsing 80% with market cap untouched — that's the split. The 2022 3-for-1 added another redrawing.

3. NVIDIA — 10-for-1 in 2024
The June 2024 split was the most-discussed split during the AI rally. The price went from about $1,200 to $120 overnight; the company has had six splits since IPO when you count cumulatively.

4. Alphabet (Google) — 2014 class split + 20-for-1 in 2022
The July 2022 20-for-1 dropped the displayed price from the $2,200s into the $110s. The company explained the move as removing a psychological barrier for retail investors who saw the high per-share price as expensive in itself.

5. Amazon — three splits in 1998–1999, then 20-for-1 in 2022
Amazon split three times in just over a year in the late 1990s, then went 23 years before splitting again in 2022. The 2022 split redrew its chart for a generation of investors who had never seen one happen.

Three habits that prevent split confusion

1. Check whether the chart is showing the adjusted close. Most free charting tools (Yahoo Finance, TradingView, Google Finance) default to split-adjusted prices. For frequently split tickers, the price shown for the 1990s on a modern chart is wildly different from the price that was actually printed at the time.

2. Old prices in books and newspapers are usually not adjusted. A 1990s book that says "Apple was $30 then" is reporting the actual quote of that day. That number is not the same as the number on today's chart, because the two are measuring different things.

3. A split is not, by itself, a bullish signal. Intrinsic value doesn't change. Volume and retail-buying activity tend to rise around splits, but the leap from "split happened" to "price will go up" is too large to generalize.

Note: Every split and price mentioned above is a public record drawn from company filings and market-data sources. None of it is a buy/sell recommendation or a return guarantee. For real-money decisions, consult licensed brokers, official filings, and qualified advisors directly.