Apple announced a $45 billion stock dividend and repurchase plan back in March, and the company starts paying its investors today, August 16th. $2.65 per share will be payed out for all owned shares of record as of Monday, August 13th.
Today marks the first dividend Apple has payed out since 1995. If you own Apple stock, you should see the payment deposited in your brokerage account before the day is over.
According to Barron’s today, Apple tops the list of tech companies keeping large amounts of cash reserves overseas. Barron’s quotes Moody’s Investor Services as estimating Apple’s overseas cash supply at $74 billion, which is higher than the $64 billion of last year.
Apple isn’t the only technology company sending cash and other liquid investments out of the country, of course. Microsoft comes in second place with an estimated $50 billion in cash, while Cisco and Oracle are estimated to have $42.3 and $25.1 billion socked away in cash, respectively.
Not only does Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster see Apple’s and its investors’ financial outlook as essentially rosy for the foreseeable future, but he’s taking it one step further. He’s convinced that he has at least ten reasons to stay bullish on Apple stock over the next three years. He also thinks the stock price is going to hit $1000 per share.
After Wednesday’s wild ride, Apple’s stock price was down even lower yesterday – trading around $530 (it’s still in that range this morning). That price prompted Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross to issue a rare buy rating for the Apple’s stock.
This is only the fifth time that Zaky has publishing a buy rating for Apple. The last time was nearly a year ago on June 20 when Apple bottomed at $310.50 a share ahead of a strong July rally that in which it grew by 30%.
Sometimes just a few words can make humongous impact – something that DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach proved spectacularly Wednesday afternoon when a statement he made caused Apple’s market value to drop 2.2% – an acceleration of a much milder downward trend that Apple’s stock has been on since its record high in early April. Gundlach comments added to that trend, causing Apple stock to plummet so much that it is down $96 billion since April 9th.
For those that weren’t following Apple’s stock price on Wednesday, just after 3 p.m. Apple’s stock price dropped sharply by 2.2% to just over $540. That’s about when Gundlach took the stage at a meeting of hedge fund managers in New York and said that he was shorting Apple because he didn’t see the company being able to sustain the massive consumer excitement generated by the new iPad and other hit products.
Third wealthiest man in the world, Warren Buffett, known for his tremendous investment success as well as his high-end philanthropy, told a group of investors at the Berkshire annual meeting that he had no interest in investing in Apple (or Google), seeing them as risky investments.
In the last two weeks, Apple’s share price has plummeted over $60 from its all-time high ahead of reports suggesting that iPhone growth was stalling at domestic carriers. Today, though, Apple has again hurtled past the $600 barrier in after hours trading after Cupertino announced yet another record breaking quarter.
Looks like we can look forward to another three months of stock growth, until the next silly pre-earnings call investor scare.
[via]
Apple’s stock price has continued to rise at an incredible rate for months, leading one analyst to predict that its shares will reach $1,000 by 2014, making it the world’s first trillion-dollar company.
Apple stock just keeps going up, up, up… except when some computer goes bananas, starts screaming “SELL SELL SELL” and all of Wall Street panics. Which is pretty much what happened earlier today, when Apple stock lost 9% of its value in just a blink of an eye.
When asked today why it was going to begin paying out an ongoing quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share to stockholders, one reason Apple cited for the new plan was that it wanted to “generate income” for its investors, and consequently attract investors for whom a dividend was an investment necessity.
It got us thinking. Apple says it wants to generate income for its shareholders, but $2.65 per quarter per share is a pretty small amount. How much stock would you need to own to even earn minimum wage from dividend payments?
The answer might surprise you, and will surely put into perspective the size of the investments Apple is hoping to attract.
The conference call announced for 9 a.m. this morning hasn’t even happened yet, and Apple’s already announced what they are doing with the cash: initiating a $10 billion share repurchase plan, as well as issue dividends and make strategic investments. All told, they expect to spend $45 billion over the next three years.
We’ll give you more details when the call starts, but for now, here’s the press release.
We’ve all seen news reports on the TV when stock markets take a nosedive. The footage is always the same: traders looking in despair at screens full of red rectangles, each one representing a falling stock.
Those magical digital rectangles are no longer for traders only. Now you can play with them yourself, in a $4.99 iOS app called StockTouch.
Add this to your list of things Apple is worth more than. As the Zero Hedge blog notes, “A company whose value is dependent on the continued success of two key products, now has a larger market capitalization (at $542 billion), than the entire US retail sector (as defined by the S&P 500).” Nuff said.
For the first time ever, Apple stock briefly touched, then dropped below, the price of $600 per share. Making that milestone even more impressive is the fact that AAPL just reached $500 per share for the first time a month ago.
Mark my words, Woz is right: Apple’s going to reach $1000 per share become the world’s first trillion dollar company.
[via MacRumors]
Apple CEO Tim Cook cashed in on $11.1 million worth of Apple stock today, according to a filing with The Securities and Exchange Commission. 20,178 of Cook’s shares were sold off through a series of 5 transactions at various individual stock prices ranging from $547-$551.
Not a bad pay day.
Yup, it’s finally happened: buoyed by the imminent launch of the iPad 3, Apple (AAPL) stock has just hit a historic high of over $500.00 a share, and now is worth a $466.29 Billion, over $70 billion more than the world’s second most valuable company, Exxon Mobil.
That’s amazing, but there’s still plenty of room to grow, believe it or not. In fact, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that Apple could go as high as $1000 per share, at which point, every man, woman and child on this Earth will be an Apple employee, grown to order in special chemical vats in Brazil and China, but designed, as ever, in Cupertino, California.
Thanks to the massive stock selloff today, Apple is within $16 billion of displacing Exxon Mobil as the the world’s most valuable company.
At market close, Exxon Mobil’s stock fell $3.88 (4.9 percent) giving it a market cap of $366 billion. Apple’s stock fell too, but only $15.20 (3.87 percent) for a market cap of $350 billion. That puts Apple within $16 billion of Exxon. Two weeks ago, the gap was $50 billion. Any day now…
Via NYT.
Tomorrow’s earnings call should be an upbeat affair, if AAPL’s latest results are anything to go by: Apple’s stock just reached an all time high of $373 a share, up about 2.5%, and the company now has a market cap of just short of $350Bn. Wow.
[via 9to5]
At the close of markets on Friday, Apple had a bigger market cap than Microsoft and Intel combined — the so-called Wintel alliance that almost buried Apple a decade ago.
Here’s how much Apple, Microsoft and Intel were worth on Wall Street at the end of the week:
After consistently undervaluing Apple, Wall St. analysts are now saying the company should be the most valuable company on Earth.
At least five firms Wall St. have upped their 12-month forecasts to an average of $467, putting Apple’s market cap at $433.7 billion, way past Exxon Mobil’s $423.2 billion.
Apple’s stock hit a new all-time high today of $355.12, valuing it at $326.6 billion. The biggest bull on Apple’s stock, Ticonderoga Securities, says it’s going to $550 thanks to future sales in China.