What happens to the stock price when a firm pays a dividend or repurchases
shares? In theory, the answers to those questions are straightforward. Take a dividend
payment for example. Suppose a firm has $1 billion in assets, financed
entirely by 10 million shares of common stock. Each share should be worth $100
($1 billion 10,000,000 shares). Now suppose that the firm pays a $1 per share
cash dividend, for a total dividend payout of $10 million. The assets of the firm
fall to $990 million. Because shares outstanding remain at 10 million, each share
should be worth $99. In other words, the stock price should fall by $1, exactly
the amount of the dividend. The reduced share price simply reflects that cash formerly
held by the firm is now in the hands of investors. To be precise, this reduction
in share price should occur not when the dividend checks are mailed but
rather when the stock begins trading ex dividend.
For share repurchases, the intuition is “you get what you pay for.” In other
words, if the firm buys back shares at the going market price, the reduction in cash
is exactly offset by the reduction in the number of shares outstanding, so the market
price of the stock should remain the same. Once again, consider the firm with