Quick Read
After some recent notable stock splits, which high-priced stocks could be next?
Here we rank AutoZone (AZO), United Rentals (URI), and W.W. Grainger (GWW), three of the most-watched candidates, from least likely to most likely to split.
The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks and AutoZone wasn’t one of them. Get them here FREE.
Wall Street is rediscovering the stock-split playbook. KLA (NASDAQ: KLAC) announced a 10-for-1 forward stock split in May 2026 alongside a fiscal Q3 earnings beat and a roughly 21% dividend hike, with shares trading near the $1,800 range. Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) has completed a 25-for-1 split announced in February 2026, dragging its share price down from over $4,000 to roughly $155.
That backdrop has investors scanning the four-digit club for the next candidate. Three NYSE-listed names keep surfacing: AutoZone (NYSE: AZO), United Rentals (NYSE: URI), and W.W. Grainger (NYSE: GWW). To be clear: none has announced a split, hinted at one in filings, or telegraphed board action. What follows ranks them purely on structural likelihood, from least to most plausible.
3. Least Likely: AutoZone
AutoZone trades at $3,406.50, with a market cap near $56.4 billion. The auto parts retailer posted Q2 FY26 EPS of $27.63 on revenue of $4.27 billion, with domestic commercial sales up 9.8%.
The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks and AutoZone wasn’t one of them. Get them here FREE.
The bull case for a split is the nominal price itself, the highest of this trio, plus broad insider participation including CEO Phil Daniele’s March 31, 2026, acquisition at $3,377.78 a share. Retail accessibility is strained at these levels.
The bear case is structural and overwhelming. AutoZone has not split its stock in over 30 years, and it has repurchased $38.9 billion of stock since 1998, with $741.9 million spent in the first half of FY26 alone. The buyback machine is the explicit reason the price keeps climbing. Splitting would undercut decades of capital allocation philosophy. Shares are down 11.7% over the past year, easing any pressure to act.
2. W.W. Grainger
W.W. Grainger trades at $1,247.79, with a market cap around $58.9 billion. The industrial distributor crushed Q1 FY26, beating EPS estimates by 14.08% at $11.65, with revenue of $4.74 billion, up 10.13%. Management raised FY26 adjusted EPS guidance to $44.25 to $46.25 and hiked the dividend 10%.
Here’s the bull case: shares have rallied 23.7% year to date and 452.4% over 10 years. CEO D.G. Macpherson described “continued momentum” as guidance was raised. A four-digit price invites the accessibility argument that pushed KLA over the line.
