Amazon.com shares are moving sharply higher in after-hours trading after the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant declared a 20-for-1 stock split and announced an expanded stock-repurchase program.
While stock splits don’t mathematically create any value for holders—they’re the financial equivalent of cutting a pie into smaller pieces—retail investors tend to like them, and split announcements often trigger short-term rallies. And, in fact, Amazon shares (ticker: AMZN) are up nearly 7% on the news, at $2,978.
Amazon…