“This coming weekend, Saturday, May 3, 2014, marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the great bond market sell-off of 2013,” Nick Cawley writes for The Wall Street Journal. “That pullback saw global fixed income markets slammed lower as the U.S. Federal Reserve decided it was time to scale back on its $85 billion a month asset purchase program.”
“It also marks the anniversary of the second-most recent appearance of one of the bond market’s rarest corporate issuers, Apple, notes Anthony Valeri, investment strategist at LPL Financial,” Cawley writes. “This week, Apple announced another blockbuster bond issue to take advantage of low yields in an opportunistic issuance to benefit stockholders. Is Apple telling us something or just riding a cheap funding wave?”
Cawley wonders, “Is Apple the harbinger of a bond market crash or just extremely clever/lucky with its timing?”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple bond deal: Take a bite or steer clear? – April 30, 2014
Orders pour in for Apple’s $12 billion bond offering – April 30, 2014
Apple debt offering only $12 billion – April 29, 2014
Apple about to join the ranks of the biggest U.S. corporate debtors – April 29, 2014
Apple readies blockbuster $17 billion debt sale – April 28, 2014
Apple plans another massive debt sale to fuel new share repurchases, dividends – April 25, 2014
Maybe this is illegal, but I have a feeling, it was this maneuver that caused Icahn to back off earlier in the year… Maybe he was told, some great things are coming up… That or, behind the scenes Tim was getting pressure, and this was a preemptive maneuver to keep the wolves down. The difference here, this is good for the people in general, and not what Icahn was asking for, specifically… A little of both. Make the entry point psychologically easier to justify.
Honey I just bought 100 shares of Apple for our portfolio… Sounds better than 10 shares.
Luck? Nah… It’s in the stars…
Apple stars…
Lucky Charms.
It’s not luck.
They know what they want to do.
They have the resources to make it happen.
They have the patience to wait for the right time to act. And when they do act, they move decisively.
The strategic thinkers at Apple are very impressive.
Exactly right. It’s not as if Apple said “OK, let’s sell some bonds…oh hey look! Rates are low! Wow is that lucky!”
Obviously they had a number of options, and when considering all the factors, including the cost of borrowing, they made their decision.
Pet peeve rant: One-year anniversary. This tweaks me almost as badly as lose/loose, arrgh.
It’s 1st Anniversary. The word year is already built in – anni (year) versary (turning). X-year anniversary is redundant.
“Anniversary” is used for more than just annual events. It is correct to use the term anniversary for “a date that follows such an event by a specified period of time measured in units other than years” (merriam-webster.com). If you’re going to worry about this one you’ll have to go after the use of terms like “PIN number” as well.
This is the sixty second anniversary of my seeing your comment :-). And the battle begins…
“First anniversary” – there, fixed. Wall Street Journal journalist, “one-year anniversary” is tautology and needless repetition :-). Epidemic.
Anniversary, noun
1. The day of the year on which an event happened or is celebrated as having happened in a previous year
2. The celebration proper to such a recurrence, esp a mass or religious service
There’s nothing about month, week, day, hour or minute anniversaries*. And here’s a hint as to why:
ORIGIN: L anniversārius, from annus a year, and vertere, versum to turn. (Acknowledging Chambers Dictionary)
* second anniversaries are allowed 🙂
— Saving the universe, one word at a time —
I hate the use of “PIN number.” It’s just a PIN, dagnabbit!
Actually, if you’re using it in conjunction with an ATM machine, PIN number is the proper term (inology).