“Apple is scheduled to report earnings on April 27. An earnings report from Apple usually makes big waves, and most Wall Street analysts will probably pay a lot of attention to iPhone sales figures during the quarter,” Andrés Cardenal writes for The Motley Fool. “However, chances are that the company will also announce a new dividend increase, and this could have major implications for investors in Apple stock.”
“Apple reinstated dividends in 2012, and the company has consistently increased payments each year after that. In the last shareholder meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated that the company is committed to increasing dividends on an annual basis,” Cardenal writes. “Apple’s dividend history shows they’re due for a hike — over the last three years Apple has announced its annual dividend increases in its earnings report for the quarter ended in March.”
“Looking at the magnitude of the dividend increases in the last several years, most investors are probably expecting a dividend hike in the high single digits to low double digits,” Cardenal writes. “Apple’s dividend payout ratio is still quite modest, in the neighborhood of 23% of the company’s earnings, and currently offers a yield of 1.9%. As a reference, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) distributes more than 50% of earnings as dividends, and the dividend yield is in the area of 2.6%. Cisco recently increased its dividend by 24%, which should have the company paying out nearly 45% of expected earnings for the current fiscal year to give investors a generous dividend yield of 3.7%.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 10 percent or so?
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