“A couple of weeks ago, Apple (AAPL) blew away analyst estimates with its fiscal second quarter report. Revenues and earnings surprised to the upside as iPhone sales came in extremely strong. Apple issued its usual less-than-expected guidance, but also announced an update to its capital return plan,” Bill Maurer writes for Seeking Alpha. “Part of that plan was a dividend raise, but one that was much smaller than expected. Today, I’ll examine the dividend disappointment, and what it means for investors going forward.”
“Apple raised its quarterly dividend from $3.05 a quarter to $3.29 per quarter, a raise of less than 8%. The new number might seem strange, but it may have to do with the upcoming stock split,” Maurer writes. “I was looking for a raise of about 15% to $3.50 a quarter, and there were analysts looking for potentially 20% or more. Earlier this year, Cisco Systems (CSCO) raised its dividend by nearly 12%, so Apple investors might be frustrated that they didn’t get that much. Late last year, Microsoft (MSFT) raised its dividend by almost 22%, with another raise expected later this year.”
“Perhaps the one question worth asking if this is a true raise. At the end of Q2 last year, Apple had just over 940 million shares outstanding. At the end of this year’s Q2 period, the outstanding share count was under 862 million,” Maurer writes. “That’s a decline of about 8.33%, which is actually larger than the dividend’s raise of 7.87%. So even though Apple raised the dividend amount, the company may actually pay out less in total dividends.”
Read more in the full article here.
I’m so upset that all these rich pricks aren’t going to get as much as some people thought. :'(
I would not worry about “Bill Maurer”. He has been a BEAR on Apple every since I started reading “Seeking Alpha”. He obviously pissed at himself and his readers are pissed at him for loosing them the recent stock price increase.
His primary point is that the increase does not meet his expectation. I have managed to set a filter on my gmail to filter seeking alpha messages about his articles and I suggest everyone does the same thing.
Summary of what he keeps ranting about: “Apple share holders are doomed…”. My message to him is to find a large dark hole and join your paymaster shameless cheating Samsung and their paid-for Judge Lucy Koh.
Apple is perpetually ‘DOOMED’. And yet it’s thriving.
It is a “true raise” for each investor with AAPL shares. The reason there are fewer shares outstanding is because Apple spent a lot of money on the stock buyback program. The benefit to AAPL investors is that each share they own represents a larger portion of Apple ownership, after every buyback. Therefore, each share SHOULD pay higher dividend, and it makes sense that the increase reflects the reduction in shares outstanding. (And the 7-for-1 stock split will make the per share dividend 1/7th of what it is now.)
Maybe Apple did not increase its total dividend output, but Apple did spend billions MORE on stock buyback. The buybacks are better for long-term investors, because it represents a lasting increase in value. No one should be “disappointed.”
Boo hoo hoo. Apple did not increase its dividend enough for this guy’s taste. What’re we gonna do? WHAT’RE WE GONNA DO???!!!
*snap*
I will add:
SobbitySobSob
Poor Baby.
😥
When Apple does anything positive, theses idiots when that it was not better. What an idiot!
Maurer is an idiot–tries to cast a negative outlook on Apple’s dividend, of course they are going to pay out less in total dividends–they reduced the share float by 78 million shares.
So then the return on the share is 16% when you combine the buy back percentage with the dividend increase? Plus, once it splits and the dividend amount is only +/- $0.45, then a $0.05 increase would be an 11% increase which they could do at the end of Q115? I dunno.
Cook made the right call when he announced the increased dividend. Rather than push the increase to the limits, he left sufficient headroom to accommodate normal market fluctuations and still allow the possibility of future increases.
Cook is very impressive.
OMG! Apple didn’t do what Cisco and Microsoft did! The sky is falling!
Idiot!
I was looking for a raise of about 15% to $3.50 a quarter, and there were analysts looking for potentially 20% or more/
Well BooHoo To You. Why don’t you just gut Apple and mount it on your wall? These analcysts. Gotta hate ’em. Invent a number, darn that number was stupid as hell, blame Apple. Worthless dummies.