Apple Announces Divended and Repurchase program

http://pulse.me/s/7a16G

Let's discuss! What does this mean for people who own shares as standard purchases or people who have EPP stocks with apple? Not quite sure what to make of this article and how it would affect some like me who owns about 100 EPP ( employee purchase plan)

while you purchase your shares with EPP, they're still treated the same as common stock when it comes to dividends.

It means you get an additional 1.8%/year compounded. I'm a common shareholder, not part of a EPP, so I can't really speak to that.

The dividend means AAPL shareholders get another small incentive to owning shares. It's not a big dividend but better than nothing.

The share re-purchase they announced is worthless. Historically, share re-purchase plans have a horrible track record and really do very little for the average shareholder.

What AAPL announced today is basically just a "get off our back about the cash" plan to wall street for a relatively small portion of thier balance sheet.

That being said, I'm really hoping AAPL forms a short term double top at the $600 area. I would love to see the stock retrace back toward the $500 area over the spring/summer, a seasonaly weak period for tech stocks, so I can buy more before the iphone5/iTV release this fall. I'm certainly not buying anymore up here at $600 with the stock basically flying 50% with no pullback since December.

I have absolutely no idea what you just said.

Dividend, and it means anyone with stock gets about $11/year per share.

I see. I should be receiving a good amount from them every quarter. Interesting.

[quote name='BillyBob29']
That being said, I'm really hoping AAPL forms a short term double top at the $600 area. I would love to see the stock retrace back toward the $500 area over the spring/summer, a seasonaly weak period for tech stocks, so I can buy more before the iphone5/iTV release this fall. I'm certainly not buying anymore up here at $600 with the stock basically flying 50% with no pullback since December.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, a 38% fib retracement would put it at about $508. I'd like to see it lower but doubt it would break $500 unless the market in general really tanks. I will probably scale in around that level.

And to think I was really on the fence about buying some shares back in the $310 days. Kicking myself for that one.

Ya, the scary thing is I bought it on 3/4/11 and I'm up over 60% now.

[quote name='BillyBob29']The dividend means AAPL shareholders get another small incentive to owning shares. It's not a big dividend but better than nothing.

The share re-purchase they announced is worthless. Historically, share re-purchase plans have a horrible track record and really do very little for the average shareholder.

What AAPL announced today is basically just a "get off our back about the cash" plan to wall street for a relatively small portion of thier balance sheet.

That being said, I'm really hoping AAPL forms a short term double top at the $600 area. I would love to see the stock retrace back toward the $500 area over the spring/summer, a seasonaly weak period for tech stocks, so I can buy more before the iphone5/iTV release this fall. I'm certainly not buying anymore up here at $600 with the stock basically flying 50% with no pullback since December.[/QUOTE]

That's because stock buy backs aren't for the benefit of the shareholders. Not directly. Stock shares are useful tools for acquisitions and hiring new talent. They can be manipulated in ways that are more versatile than straight cash. But if too many of them are in circulation outside the company it can cause control issues. Thus the buy back.