“Apple plans to report its December quarter results on Monday, January 27, and holds its shareholder meeting on Friday, February 28,” Chuck Jones writes for Forbes. “Tim Cook said on the September quarter results conference call that ‘we will announce any changes to our current program in the first part of the new calendar year.'”
“From a timing perspective I believe it would be best for Apple to update its dividend and buyback program when it announces its financial results on January 27,” Jones writes. “Carl Icahn intends to submit a proposal at Apple’s upcoming shareholders meeting for the company to repurchase not less than $50 billion of stock by the end of September 2014. If the company makes an announcement in January management should be more in control of the debate of Icahn’s proposal before the shareholder meeting.”
“I expect the company to announce it will raise the quarterly payment from $3.05 to between $3.25 to $3.35 or a 7% to 10% increase,” Jones writes. “On December 5 last year Moody’s published a report that Apple could take on an additional $20 to $25 billion before it could affect its credit rating… Management may decide to increase the buyback program but if it does I don’t think it will be any more than $20 billion especially since there are two years left on the current program and multiple events requiring U.S. cash may occur. Also I don’t believe management will want to risk a downgrade to its credit ratings.”
Read more in the full article here.
All the more reason to be long and reap multiple rewards and growth
Apple had better do something for shareholders unless they want them to storm Cupertino with pitchforks and torches looking for Tim Cook’s blood. Apple’s share price is going nowhere. Just recently, Google got a target price upgrade to $1450 a share while Apple just got another downgrade. Apparently, Nest’s smart thermostats carry a hell of a lot more weight for investors than Apple’s China Mobile deal. Apple wants to throw away good money on buybacks instead of acquisitions and it’s just a waste of good money. Buybacks are doing absolutely nothing for Apple’s share price and Apple should have just offered loyal shareholders larger dividends.
Let me put those billions of dollars of buybacks into perspective. Over the past 52 weeks Microsoft’s share price has outperformed Apple’s share price 31% to 9% while Apple was claimed to be killing the entire PC industry with iPads. It sure doesn’t look that way at all. Apple must have some sleight-of-hand games going on where shareholders blink and the money disappears right before their eyes.
King Timmy D. of Apple Castle had better do something for Apple shareholders if he can’t figure out how to increase Apple’s shareholder value by making the company more attractive to outside investors. If not, I have pitchfork in my basement and I’ll roll up a few newspapers and light them and head right on over to Cupertino and demand a bigger slice of the dividend pie. Again, I’ll have to beg the Loyal Apple Apologists forgiveness of my rude impatience but King Timmy D. seems just a bit too laid back for Wall Street’s way of thinking.
1. Stop your incessant whining. Investing isn’t fantasy football and it isn’t for crybabies.
2. If you are in fact an apple shareholder, take some responsibility for your own decisions.
3. If you are so unhappy with Tim Cook, sell your position in AAPL and buy GOOG. If that means taking a loss, then suck it up and come to grips with the fact that no amount of whining and name calling is going to make it better.
To summarize, stfu and go away.
You’re displaying an ID TEN “T” error. (yeh, write it out with the number 10 instead of the word!!!). You know nothing about P/E. if you think Google is such a good deal, sell your Apple stock and buy GOOG with the proceeds. Any LONG investor has made money on Apple and, with it paying a dividend, will continue to make money even if it NEVER moves higher.
rottenbittenfruit — why spend all your time writing this crap and being wrong. I bet you know the truth but love this attention – were you not loved as a child – are you still a lonely child? I hope you can find the light in your dark little world. its sad… ;(
Apple has gotten where it is by focusing, laser-like, upon making great products people love, not by trying to “increase Apple’s shareholder value by making the company more attractive to outside investors.”
In short, like most analcysts, you don’t understand Apple.
My response above was intended for rbf.
I like a dividend. But, we are talking about a small part of a day’s stock move being greater than the possible dividend increase. We are talking about $.305 a share. What day did the Apple stock not move up or down only $.305 a share.
$3.05 or $3.35 isn’t the issue. There are so many things Apple could do to excite the investment community using commercials, interviews, touring undisclosed locations of their many server farms, … Really, where is the excitement. Does the average Joe on the street know that Apple devices are the ONLY 64-bit devices on the market. When the Wall Street story is 12 customers in China and there are thousands in the photos, who is calling them out on this crap? They do it because they have nothing to loose. Not possible future advertising, interviews, …
The beating will continue until our attitude changes! Man up Apple!!!
JT, as a short-sighted day trader who’s looking for excitement while sitting at your PC, why dontcha move along. Apple’s not interested in providing cheap thrills to your ilk. Apple adds value to people’s lives with great products & services. Apple provides jobs to thousands of people in its stores and via payouts to APP Developers. What does the scum of Wall Street add? Manipulation of stock prices by small minds. Hardly admirable.
Hi Suburban Hermit. You take the name and assume much. I am a very long term holder of AAPL. I am a long time user of Apple computers and devices. I program them and integrated them into the manufacturing process where I work. The first Apple I programed and automated with was an Apple IIe with a Rodger Laboratory board. I may have worked with Apple equipment longer than you were alive. “Trader” is only in my alias.
Do you want to compare who has more shares in the game? I will be retiring on AAPL shares later this year. So, what is your skin in the game. If you think Tim and the board are not missing opportunities, you really haven’t a clue about Apple’s potential. They are not firing on all cylinders and can do better. MUCH BETTER. I have been “patient” for a very long time. It is time for Tim and the rest to shine and stop talking about it.
Sorry, folks, but a 10% increase in the dividend is peanuts and a gross insult to long-term AAPL investors!
The company currently returns $12.20 per share yearly to holders. Given an outstanding share load right now of 893 million, that equals approximately $11 billion being paid out per annum ($10,894,600,000 to be a bit more precise).
I realize they are also buying back shares, or plan to into the future; but the fact is that THIS PAST QUARTER ALONE, Apple will pocket at least 11 billion dollars in profits–and probably much, much more.
Given that the company has already banked 140 billion (+/-) here and abroad, there is absolutely no need to keep more of stockholder money in “reserve” now or in the immediate future. The truth is that our government will not allow the company to make any “massive” purchases in their sector EVER (i.e., Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Texas Instruments, HP, etc.), and they are clearly unwilling to branch out into alien ventures like car or boat manufacture. Therefore, only relatively small companies are available for acquisition in the future, and operating expenses/margin loss is negligible. That means that the AAPL cash hoard is growing and shows no sign of diminishing any time soon.
A 25% increase in the dividend–at minimum–is called for here . . . or some other DRAMATIC move by the company to use its sitting capital wisely, efficiently, and profitably . . . or, I swear, the stock price is going to be up for grabs. And NOT in a good way.
Please understand, folks, that Carl Icahn is a right stinky turd IMHO. But a very, very, very, very small part of what he says about AAPL investors returns is right on.
“Sorry, folks, but a 10% increase in the dividend is peanuts and a gross insult to long-term AAPL investors!”
Most long term apple investors have sizable positions, which makes a 10% increase in the dividend a substantial 10% gain…
“Most long term apple investors have sizable positions, which makes a 10% increase in the dividend a substantial 10% gain…”
Not when 150 billion dollars is rotting on the sidelines, breeze, with much more to come. Most definitely not.
That cash horde is NOT Apple’s money. It is the shareholders’. And the company must either use it–or give it back. Either way, something must be done to shore up AAPL in the market place. That is not happening right now. Lesser companies are moving up (GOOG, AMZN, NFLX), and AAPL is dead money floating in the water.
What is your suggestion?
Rotting on the sidelines??? Are you mad?
Most Apple investors have voted confidence in Apple’s boad and executive branch, time and time again, they get it and most have been rewarded handsomely throuought the years and will continue to be for years to come. Most apple investors have endured years of bias and media bias and when steve Jobs was alive so did he.
Apple is the most profitable company in the country and the world and leads every market that it’s in. How long you have been following Apple and to what extent you know what crap you are taliking is eveident from your own displayed ignorance. So my suggestion is get a little experience and gained knowledge before you compare lesser companies in numbers and proportions and get a clue about Apple, becuase it’s obvious that you don’t have one.
That money is not rotting on the sidelines. It has purpose, not on public display, but strategic nonetheless. The architects of excellence have not negligently ignored the histrionic demands of market kibitzers; they have simply ignored them as they maintain a steely-eyed focus on a future they are determining almost single-handedly, brushing aside the mincing objections of the small-minded. They are confident, bold, and mindful. The rest are imagination-starved slaves of a pitiable consensus that welcomes mediocrity into their lives as kin.
Insult me with a 10% increase. I am all for enticing other investors to invest in Apple. It increases the value to where it should be priced. I have been long on Apple and am tired of hearing excuses about Tim Cook and the board of directors. Time to up the priority on shareholders who have stuck with Apple through good and bad times.
TC, 1/27/14: “As we announced last year, we will review our dividend and buyback polity before the next shareholder meeting…”
or similar. NOT before the april ’14 numbers. Because they already said so, spring last year.
SPECULATION ONLY
What if Apple has in mind something far larger and more extensive than what has occurred to you? Teaming up with SpaceX or another agency to launch their own set of satellites. I know…I know..crazy..but they could literally afford it. Or buy most of Hollywood and with massive data centers in place around the world, control entertainment production and distribution. Would $50 billion cover that? Easy…I know I know…plenty of reasons not to…but the point is that with that much cash they are not simply holding on to it to buy a set of $200 million companies. They very likely have bigger plans.
Yeah, and if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
Nothing in Apple’s past or present indicates the visionary likelihood of something like what you imagine. Show me specifics, or increase the dividend. Period.
I agree with Radian, 10% is an insult. And Timber really doesn’t have a clue.