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Consumers wanting to take a piece of Apple stock for themselves are now going to have an easier time of it — at least psychologically. The company’s stock opened at $92.70 a share today, following a 7-to-1 stock split that gave each Apple shareholder 6 additional shares of the company’s stock.

In a FAQ on its investor site, the company said that the move is designed to make Apple stock more accessible to more people. Judging from the price, that strategy certainly seems to have worked. Apple closed at $645.57 a share on Friday, and the split moved the company’s stock towards a more affordable price point.

Apple's University Village store. (Credit: Apple)
Apple’s University Village store. (Credit: Apple)

That may also help stabilize some of the volatility in Apple’s share price. In the past, shares of the company’s stock have experienced significant drops following major product announcements because investors were concerned that Apple didn’t announce all the products that they wanted to see, or those products Apple announced didn’t have the right features.

Those drops could become less pronounced in the future now that there are 12.6 billion shares of Apple common stock available.

The split was announced as a part of Apple’s quarterly earnings report in April, and injected new life into the company’s stock, which had been languishing as Wall Street investors expressed skepticism about the company’s ability to produce continued growth.

Apple’s split comes after Google cut its stock in half earlier this year. Unlike Apple, the Mountain View-based company performed a 2-to-1 split, giving existing shareholders one new Class C share in the company, which doesn’t carry any voting rights.

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