In a note to clients on Tuesday, Citigroup analyst Jim Suva estimated that Apple could increase its dividend by 5% to 10% and may announce a buyback plan of $80 billion to $90 billion.
Subrat Patnaik for Bloomberg News:
Apple’s repurchases have totalled $274.5 billion, including $20.4 billion in the December quarter alone. Yet the company still has cash of more than $200 billion on the balance sheet, and with authorization to purchase up to $315 billion of stock, has scope to do a lot more.
Apple shares have fared better than peers this year, falling 6.7% versus the 14% drop of the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index. That’s despite reports of production difficulties that Suva says “could provide a near-term stock pullback which we would use as a buying opportunity.”
MacDailyNews Take: All eyes will be on Apple’s fiscal Q2 earnings report on April 28th, which is expected include new dividend and buyback information.
Last April, Apple’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $0.22 per AAPL share, an increase of 7 percent.
Apple’s per share dividend might get to a quarter (or just short of it) this year.
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