Although artificial intelligence (AI) is currently the hottest thing since sliced bread on Wall Street, the euphoria surrounding stock splits isn't too far behind.

A stock split is an event that allows a publicly traded company to alter its share price and outstanding share count by the same magnitude. These changes are purely cosmetic in the sense that stock splits have no impact on a company's market cap or its underlying operating performance.

Stock splits can go in either direction: forward or reverse. With a reverse-Stock split, a company is purposely increasing its share price. This is often done to meet the continued minimum listing standards for a major Stock exchange. Meanwhile, a forward-Stock split is undertaken to make a company's shares more nominally affordable for retail investors who might not have access to fractional-share purchases with their broker. Since forward splits are completed from a position of strength, they tend to be the type of split investors gravitate to.

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Source Fool.com