“It has been a good two months to be an Apple (AAPL) shareholder. After watching a steady decline in its share price since September, which saw the stock plunge from $700 a share to less than $400, the stock has gained more than 100 points in the last 8 weeks,” Bret Jensen writes for Seeking Alpha.
“The rise has primarily been driven by what some investors would call ‘financial engineering.’ Pressed by activist investors David Einhorn and now Carl Icahn, the company upped its stock repurchase program from $10B to $60B. The company has already bought back some $16B in stock within this program. In addition, Apple raised its dividend some 15% to $3.05 a share,” Jensen writes. “These changes have been very important in changing investor sentiment on the stock and to arrest its nine month decline. However, it appears the gains triggered by these efforts have run their course and the stock could be locked into a somewhat tight range of ~$480 to $520 a share while awaiting further developments. The ‘first stage”‘ of Apple’s comeback appears complete.”
Jensen writes, “In order to break out from this range on the upside and start to head higher, hopefully above the all-time highs seen in 2012 – the company needs to succeed operationally from a new product and distribution front. Here are the key items the company has to execute successfully to ignite the next stage of stock market appreciation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The fall was primarily driven by what some investors would call stock manipulation, oh, sorry, “financial engineering.”