If the markets were efficient or in any way a true reflection of value that might be the case. In reality this sort of change can impact the percived value as can a lot of other noise people react to every day. As they say, in the short term the market is a beauty contest, maybe the act of splitting makes the company looks cooler, proactive, smart. Who knows.
Whenever people are concerned there's no such thing as cold-hearted assessment. The only trading entities that are cold hearted are algorithms.
I absolutely agree with you that there are a lot of people who will purchase the stock out of emotion just because the stock now seems more "affordable" - but I'm saying those people who enter the market and play on emotion and "gut feel", will be absolutely destroyed by the professionals who have vast amounts of information and insight into what the long term price of these stocks will be. Those "professionals" may blow the occasional call, but, in the long term, over hundreds/thousands of stocks - they will move the market to the the long term "weighing device" valuation.
So, yes, if Apple were looking for a short term bump in AAPL, perhaps a stock split might, just might be the right play - but, for long term valuation, I am struggling to understand why a stock split has any merit whatsoever.
Whenever people are concerned there's no such thing as cold-hearted assessment. The only trading entities that are cold hearted are algorithms.