Apple's split takes effect

Updated at 9:56 a.m. ET

Missed your chance to buy Apple (AAPL) stock when it was less than $100 a share? Here's your chance.

The stock, which closed Friday at about $646, is expected to trade Monday at around $93 a share. That's because a 7-for-1 stock split kicked in after the close of trading Friday, and two things happened: Apple shareholders received seven shares for each one they own, and the stock price was chopped down to a seventh of its previous value.

In theory, that shouldn't mean much of a change for Apple shareholders. The amount of money they have in Apple stock doesn't change.

Post-split, Apple could suddenly become more palatable to investors, who recently had cooled on the stock because of the company's slowing growth. Analysts aren't sure if people will jump in to the cheaper stock, however. John Bright, an analyst with Avondale Partners, thinks any potential gain from the split has already been baked into Apple's stock price, reports Investors.com.

Apple shares have gained nearly 25 percent since the company announced the split in April. The company has been within striking distance of its record high of $705.07 hit in September 2012, Forbes reports.

Another possibility after the split is that Apple's stock could join the Dow Jones industrial average, that prestigious index of 30 stocks closely watched by investors. That average has been weighted by stock price, and Apple shares were previously so expensive that the stock would have unfairly dominated the Dow. Any big movement in Apple would have thrown the index out of whack.

But now that Apple shares are so much cheaper, it could be a good fit for the Dow. After all, there are now several components of the Dow with higher stock prices, including Visa (V), IBM (IBM) and Goldman Sachs (GS), Forbes reports.

This is Apple's fourth split since the company went public in 1980. It had a 2-for-1 split in 1987, 2000 and in 2005.

So will Apple's more affordable shares convince investors to pile in? In a recent MarketWatch poll, 49 percent of respondents said they would buy shares, 20 percent declined and 32 percent said they already owned the stock.

Editor's Note: The headline on an earlier version of this story gave the impression that the change in Apple's share price was due to a drop in valuation when in fact the decline was due to the split. We've adjusted the headline for clarity.