4 High-Flying Stocks Stubbornly Resist Splits—Here’s Which Might Crack First

Trey ThoelckeWed, May 27, 2026 at 11:55 AM UTC

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Stock splits are back in fashion, but a small club of high-priced names has refused to play along for decades, even as peers embrace splits to court retail investors.

AutoZone (AZO) and Goldman Sachs (GS) have not split their stocks in many years, and NVR (NVR) never has.

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The stock split is back in fashion. Yet a small club of high-priced names has refused to play along for decades, even as peers embrace splits to court retail investors.

Four stand out: AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) has not split since its 1991 IPO, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has not split since 2000, NVR (NYSE: NVR) has never split, and TransDigm (NYSE: TDG) has historically returned capital through special dividends. None has announced a split or telegraphed board action. The ranking below counts down from the most entrenched holdout to the one most likely to budge.

4. NVR: The Permanent Holdout

The homebuilder carries the highest absolute share price of the four, closing at $6,032.82 on May 26, 2026, with a market cap of roughly $16.3 billion. Q1 2026 was rough: EPS of $67.76 missed the $79.20 consensus estimate, with revenue down 22% year over year and homebuilding settlements off 22%.

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CEO Eugene Bredow personally bought 60 shares at $5,776.15 on May 14, 2026, and 80 shares at $6,262.53 on May 6. When insiders happily write four-figure checks per share, splitting the float is not on the agenda. NVR also just authorized a fresh $750 million share buyback. Capital return runs entirely through repurchases.

3. AutoZone: 30+ Years of Stubborn

The specialty retailer trades at $3,100.11 a share, down 19.0% over the past year, with a market cap near $51.4 billion and a trailing P/E of 22x. Q3 FY2026 delivered EPS of $38.07 versus $36.17 expected, with revenue up 8.4% year over year.

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CEO Phil Daniele has not entertained a split publicly. Capital allocation is all buyback: $586.3 million repurchased in Q3 at $3,582 per share, with $804.2 million remaining. Cumulative buybacks since 1998 hit $38.9 billion, leaving shareholders' equity negative. There is no dividend program. AutoZone treats a high share price as a deliberate strategic feature. The case for a split is purely cosmetic; the case against it is institutional inertia.

2. TransDigm: The Special-Dividend School

The aerospace manufacturer's stock closed at $1,226, with a market cap of $68.6 billion and a forward P/E of 38x. Q2 FY2026 was strong: adjusted EPS of $9.85 versus $9.31 expected, revenue up 18.3% year over year, and EBITDA margin of 52.6%. Management raised FY2026 guidance to sales of $10.30 billion to $10.42 billion.

TransDigm's identity centers on M&A and large one-time special dividends over retail-friendly optics. CEO Mike Lisman is busy closing deals, including the recently completed $2.20 billion Jet Parts Engineering and Victor Sierra acquisition, and the pending $960 million Stellant transaction. The lowest share price of the four softens any urgency. A split is conceivable only if leadership decides to court a broader retail base, which is not the current playbook.

1. Goldman Sachs: The Most Plausible Candidate

Goldman Sachs closed at $994.52, up 66.2% over the past year, with a market cap of roughly $293 billion. Q4 2025 delivered EPS of $14.01 versus $11.76 expected, a 19.13% beat. Management raised the dividend 12.5% to $4.50 per share, and the firm bought back $12.36 billion of stock in 2025, with roughly $32 billion in capacity remaining.

CEO David Solomon told shareholders the firm has grown "revenues by 60%, improved returns by 500 basis points and delivered total shareholder returns of more than 340%" since its first Investor Day, and expects momentum to "accelerate in 2026." Goldman has the lowest absolute share price of the four, a retail-investor-facing brand, an active dividend program, and broad employee stock compensation that benefits from a friendlier per-share quote. Prediction markets show zero contracts tracking a Goldman split, and management has signaled nothing.

Key Takeaway for Investors

Splits are cosmetic. Market cap, intrinsic value, and fundamentals are unchanged by reslicing the pie. What can shift is retail demand, options accessibility, and short-term sentiment. None of these four companies has announced or signaled a split. Among them, Goldman Sachs carries the cleanest combination of dividend culture, brand recognition, and an employee comp structure that would benefit from a more accessible share price. If any of the four finally budges, the smart money looks to 200 West Street first.

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Source: “AOL Money”