Though artificial intelligence (AI) has hogged the spotlight on Wall Street in each of the last three years, it's not the only trend that's helped lift the benchmark S&P 500 and growth-focused Nasdaq Composite to record highs. Investor euphoria for influential businesses conducting stock splits has been another important upside catalyst for the stock market.
A stock split is an event that allows a publicly traded company to cosmetically alter its share price and outstanding share count by the same factor. These adjustments are purely superficial in the sense that they have no impact on a company's market cap or operating performance.
Despite these changes being superficial, investors view stock splits very different, depending on whether they're designed to raise or lower a company's share price. Reverse splits, which aim to increase a public company's share price, are often shunned by investors. Companies conducting this type of split are usually doing so to avoid delisting from a major stock exchange.
Image source: Getty Images.
At the other end of the spectrum, investors gravitate to businesses announcing and completing forward splits. This type of split, which is designed to make a company's shares more nominally affordable for everyday investors, is undertaken by businesses that are out-innovating their peers and executing with precision.
Furthermore, companies enacting forward splits have a history of handily outperforming the S&P 500 in the 12 months following their split announcement. This is why investors are always on the lookout for Wall Street's next blockbuster stock-split stocks.
While there's no way to tell, with any concrete certainty, which stocks will split next, social media titan Meta Platforms (META +0.28%) and one of its "Magnificent Seven" peers look ideally positioned to become the headline stock-split stocks of 2026.
Meta Platforms is perfectly positioned to announce a forward split
There's more to picking out the next blockbuster stock-split stock than a high share price. In order for a company's board of directors to propose a split, there typically needs to be substantive ownership by retail investors. Most stocks with share prices of $500 or higher fail this portion of the sniff test -- but Meta Platforms doesn't.
Meta is the only member of the Magnificent Seven that's never completed a split. More importantly, over 28% of its outstanding shares are held by "non-institutional" investors. With a share price that's been consistently above $700 for the last four months, it's not hard to imagine that everyday investors who can't buy fractional shares through the broker may be somewhat constrained. This is a recipe that warrants a potential stock split in the coming year.
Beyond having the characteristics to incent a stock split, there's a good probability Meta stock will increase in value over time due to a handful of catalysts working in its favor.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
First and foremost, Meta is an ad-driven business. While all the hoopla for the time being has to do with Meta's AI spending and the build-out of its AI-accelerated data center, it's collecting almost 98% of its net sales from ads tied to its family of apps, which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Threads, and Facebook Messenger.
Advertising is a highly cyclical industry that benefits from the disproportionate nature of economic cycles. Since World War II ended 80 years ago, the average U.S. recession has lasted about 10 months, while the typical expansion has endured five years. This is a recipe for ad spending to expand over time.
Additionally, Meta Platforms coaxed an average of 3.48 billion daily active users to its family of apps during the month of June. No social media company comes particularly close to giving advertisers access to this many users, which allows Meta to command quite a lot of ad-pricing power.
Meta's balance sheet gives it plenty of flexibility, as well. Closing out June with more than $47 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and pacing around $99 billion in full-year operating cash flow for 2025, puts it in the driver's seat to aggressively invest in game-changing technologies, such as AI and the metaverse.
Image source: Getty Images.
It's time for Microsoft's first stock split since 2003
The other high-flying Magnificent Seven stock that looks to have a clear path to a forward stock split in 2026 is none other than Microsoft (MSFT 0.26%), the world's second-largest public company by market value behind Nvidia.
Unlike Meta, Microsoft is no stranger to conducting stock splits to make its shares more nominally affordable for retail investors. Since going public in March 1986, it's completed nine forward splits (seven of the 2-for-1 variety, and two 3-for-2 splits). However, the last of these splits occurred in February 2003.
The two catalysts here are that Microsoft's share price has soared well above $500, and more than 33% of its outstanding shares are held by retail investors. Although the ability to purchase fractional shares has become more common for online brokers, a share price north of $500 is well above where Microsoft had previously split its stock in the days prior to fractional-share purchases.
Similar to Meta, Microsoft's high share price and retail investor ownership represent only part of the story. The company's foundational operating segments should also lead to big-time upside in its stock.
NASDAQ: MSFT
Key Data Points
Microsoft's key operating segment is cloud infrastructure service Azure, which is incorporating generative AI solutions and large language model applications for its subscribers. The addition of AI solutions has reaccelerated Azure's year-over-year growth firmly back into the 30%-plus range.
But what investors often overlook with Microsoft is the value that its legacy operating segments provide. While Windows and Office aren't growing like they once were, these are exceptionally high-margin software segments capable of generating boatloads of operating cash flow. Windows is still the leading operating systems for desktops. Microsoft can redirect the cash it generates from these legacy operations to faster-growing initiatives, such as AI, or use this capital to make earnings-accretive acquisitions.
Not to sound like a broken record, but Microsoft's cash balance is impressive, too. It closed out its fiscal year (June 30, 2025) with $94.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, and collected more than $136 billion in cash from operations in fiscal 2025.
The table is set for Microsoft to join Meta Platforms as Wall Street's likeliest blockbuster stock-split stocks of 2026.
