You joined whatever.com as an employee when the stock was trading at exactly $20. You were granted ten thousand options as a kiss on the cheek for joining. The stock did extremely well and went to $50/share, at which point the company announced a two-for-one stock split.
Overnight, once this stock split was effected, the shares went from trading at $50 each...all the way down to $20 each. Had you not read this definition, you might be all bummed out, because what was $30 in the money stock option value off of your $20 strike price, subtracted from the $50 market price, just cratered.
But in fact, no, that's not what happened. The stock split, which means that your shares outstanding split as well––that is, you went from having ten thousand options to having twenty thousand options, and your strike price, which used to be $20, is now $10.
So the day before the stock split, you had $3,000 worth of intrinsic value in your stock option, or ten thousand options times the quantity 50 - 20 = $30. A cool $300,000 in the money the day before the split.
The day after the split, you had twenty-thousand options with your $10 strike, and a $25 stock price.
The math? 20,000 options times $15 of intrinsic value, or in the money option value, to multiply out to being the exact same $300,000 in value you had the day before the stock split.
So yes, stock splits are an overhyped press release. Not something to get all hyped up about.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What are Theta and Theta Decay?10 Views
finance a la shmoop what are they two and theta decay well in Wall Street
parlance theta is just time you know parsley sage rosemary and our nevermind [Parsley, sage and rosemary plants appear]
okay this is time like with a calendar the tea there in theta
it stands for time or tick-tock and in this case theta refers to the amount of
time left on a contract as that contract gets closer to expiring or executing [Timeline of contract expiration date]
well you'd say that the theta decays like a molding old skeleton returning [Decayed skeleton appears in grave]
ashes to ashes dust to dust so yeah when theta decays the amount of
time left on a contract a trade the life of a stock option lessons most commonly
theta decay is applied to the time remaining on stock option contracts
well what theta is it yep example theta all right so let's say you paid five
bucks a share for a call option to buy Comcast shares for 40 bucks a share [Call option for comcast appears]
anytime in the next four and a half months the stock trades today at $34 a
share well if the stock were still at thirty four bucks a share four months [Calendar months fall off the wall]
later ie with only two weeks or a ten trading days left well what would you
guess your call option to buy Comcast at forty bucks a share or six dollars above
where it's currently trading would be worth more than five bucks less you know
way less for that option to be worth anything positive the stock would have
to go above forty or appreciate seventeen and a half percent ish in ten
days and nobody would then pay an incremental five bucks above that figure [Cash thrown onto a fire]
to then buy the shares for an all-in cost of forty five bucks trying to make
money like the stock would have to zoom from 34 to fifty bucks a share to really [Man holding comcast stock]
have a good outcome risk adjusted so as the option got closer to expiring its [Call option moves to expiration date]
value would decay because the optionality got less there's less time
for that stock to break fifty bucks and change if there were a thousand trading
days in the future and the option had notionally like five years before it
expired like enormous theta well then it would likely have sold for
vastly more than five bucks a share you know for that stock option and hey if [Piles of cash appear on table]
you want to see real decay well just check out Simon and Garfunkel lately
looks like they're you know homeward bound [Man discussing Simon and Garfunkel]
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