Don't look now, but Wall Street's broadest stock indexes, the benchmark S 500 and growth-focused Nasdaq Composite, are back in correction territory, as of the closing bell on Oct. 27.

Typically, when the sledding gets tough on Wall Street, investors seek the safety of profitable, time-tested, outperforming businesses. Over the past two years, this definition has perfectly encompassed a handful of companies enacting stock splits.

A stock split is an event that allows a publicly traded company to cosmetically alter its share price and outstanding share count without having any impact on its market cap or operating performance. A forward-stock split reduces a company's share price, thereby making it more affordable for everyday investors who don't have access to fractional-share purchases with their online broker.

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Source Fool.com