DISNEY SPLITS SHARES 3-FOR-1; FIRM'S STOCK GAINS 3% AFTER SCHEDULED MOVE.

Byline: Dave McNary  Daily News Staff Writer

Stock of The Walt Disney Co., which had declined 15 percent in the past two months, posted a respectable 3 percent gain Friday after the company executed its previously announced 3-for-1 stock split.

Shares of the entertainment giant rose 1-1/8 to 38-1/8 as its stock split - announced in April with the goal of making the shares more affordable - went into effect. Volume totaled more than 15.6 million shares, which would have been 5.2 million had the shares not been split, and nearly triple its average over the past three months. Disney was the second most actively traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

The stock closed Thursday at $111, rising $2.6875 on a pair of analyst upgrades. It opened Friday at $37 as the 680 million outstanding shares became 2.04 billion.

Companies often split their stock when it consistently trades over $50 or $100 in order to make the shares more attractive to smaller investors. If an investor has only $1,000, for example, a stock trading at $20 or $40 seems like a better buy than one trading over $100.

Although such moves actually don't change the value of the investment - a single share of Disney stock Thursday was worth exactly the same as the three new Disney shares Friday - the reality is that splits usually drive up share prices.

Disney shares hit a high of $42.37-1/2 ($127.12-1/2 pre-split) on May 4, then fell to $35.01-1/2 ($105.06-1/4 pre-split) on June 30 on a spectacular one-day loss of 7 percent as seven Wall Street analysts cut earnings estimates on concerns about summer films, ABC television ratings, the cost of pro football telecasts, theme-park attendance and weak economies in Asia and Europe. Strong performance by ``Mulan'' has helped lift the stock this week.

The split is the seventh in Disney's history as a public company and the first since May 1992, when the shares were split 4-for-1.