Google Stock Split

Normally I take very little interest in commenting on Google since it seems the whole blogosphere is rife with Google coverage.  However this post by John Battelle got my interest (btw John's coverage on the search space is top class and always worth a read)

Will Google split its stock? Given its love of Buffet, probably not, says Bloomberg News. So does that mean smaller investors will be priced out of owning it? Yes and no. Yes, they probably can't own it if if keeps going up - Buffet's stock is at 84K or so - but they can always buy a fund that owns it. In other words, if Google does not split, it'll end up being owned mostly by institutions.

Prices such as Google's make it more difficult for individual, or retail, investors to buy and sell stock, according to David Ikenberry, a finance professor at the University of Illinois in Champaign.

``It's clear that higher sales price equates with higher institutional ownership,'' Ikenberry said in an interview. ``At a certain level, the retail market gets priced out.''

I realize that John is quoting a bloomberg story in which the reporter is in turn quoting a finance professor (David Ikenberry) and my limited dealing with the media has convinced me that words spoken to a reporter don't necessarily turn out the right way in print. 

That being said this statement by the professor makes no sense.  The stock price has no rational bearing on its attractiveness or not (its market cap has but not the stock price).  If you are a retail investor and you wanted to invest $1500 in Google you still can whether the stock price is $10 or $300.  In one case you get 150 shares and in the other 5 but the reality is that you own the same amount of the company.  The only time this stops being true is when the stock price goes so high that it expands beyond the reach of most retail investors (Berkshire at $80,000 comes to mind) but even with Berkshire, you have a Class B stock at $2800.