Apple poised to throw billions more at investors amid stock slump

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Apple stock has been in decline for most of the year, but AAPL investors are likely to get at least one bit of good news when the company reports earnings Thursday afternoon. More cash in form of buybacks, fist and foremost, and a bump in dividends.

Emily Bary for MarketWatch:

[Apple] typically makes updates to its capital-return policies when it posts March-quarter results, and that means it could soon rain more money on investors in the form of dividends and buybacks.

CFRA analyst Angelo Zino said Apple AAPL will up its buyback program by $90 billion, in line with what it did in each of the past two years. But the company’s dividend increase could be smaller: Zino projects a 3% dividend hike, compared with a 4% increase last year and a 5% bump the year before that.

Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring also said not to expect a “meaningful deviation” from past patterns, suggesting the possibility of a $90 billion buyback increase as well, along with a mid-single-digit increase to the company’s dividend.

The capital-return announcement will come as Apple’s stock has gotten off to a sour start to the year, falling 12% over the course of 2024 to date, as the S&P 500 SPX has advanced 5%.

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MacDailyNews Note: Here’s what analysts expect from Apple, according to LSEG consensus estimates:

• Earnings per share: $1.50
• Revenue: $90.01 billion

We’ll have Apple’s results as soon as they are available right around 1:30pm PDT / 4:30pm EDT – just check our home page: https://macdailynews.com.

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