Apple Announces Plans to Initiate Dividend and Share Repurchase Program

Post by jfoutz » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 6:30 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #92

funkah wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate to say this is a bad idea, but dividends signal to the market that you have no better way to spend your money than just giving it back to investors to spend elsewhere. The ever-present notion that the leadership team of what is now one of the largest companies in the world has no real idea what they are doing is fascinating to me. Perhaps they deserve a bit of credit.

They're riding a hit. I know this borders on heresy here, but the iPhone/iPad ecosystem is really just one very good product that hit an amazingly lucrative sweet spot in an emerging market. They're printing money with it because they got there first and best (c.f. Microsoft), not because their "leadership team" is reliably able to produce hit after hit. Even Jobs only really got one money-printing-quality hit like t…

Post by brudgers » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #141

ajross wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... the expected Apple fan flames have begun. Pixar, iPod and iPad didn't have anything like the iPhone's level of profitability. I lump the latter in with the iPhone because the current implementations are one platform (no one calls it, ahem, "intellectually dishonest" to talk about "windows" profitability instead of "windows home" vs. "windows server" numbers). But there's no need, so I'll simplify. If all Apple…

How about Siri? The iPhone was the next step in omnipresent computing. You always have your iPhone. It's two steps down from laptops (leap-frogging the tablet, which has come after the iPhone). The next step is either glasses with computer screens (kind of geeky), or voice-interface computers. With a voice interface, you can shrink a computer down to the size of a wristwatch. Getting data out is a problem (display gl…

Post by drawkbox » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 6:54 PM UTC

WiseWeasel wrote: post #124

drawkbox wrote: post #102

The only time Apple had a dividend before was the time when Jobs was not there and innovation left (87-mid 90s). Let's hope this does not signal that. As a shareholder I'd preferred if they just kept and invested the money in new products. Why not use that money to speed up the real Apple TV? Screen tech? Storage? There are still lots of advancements left in handheld and this levels the playing field a bit. Apple hoa…

Apple has only become this profitable by abandoning their early days' Not Invented Here syndrome, when they used to design and build their products from soup to nuts, and instead riding the wave of innovation by specialized third party suppliers with off-the-shelf solutions. They have long discovered that it's much less risky and much more profitable to let others do the fundamental component development work, and fo…

Post by kytmizuno » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #130

Osiris wrote: post #101

With $100B in the bank, I keep thinking that Apple could do a lot more to disrupt of lot of industries. They could afford to build an entirely new wireless carrier, from scratch (I understand spectrum might be an issue). They could create an entire newly kind of music label that redefines how artists are compensated and how labels make money. Or they could create their own new book publishing company that breaks with…

It's the first one that excites me. Apple could completely upend the wireless market by selling data service at cost as a loss-leader for their devices-- or even building lifetime unlimited data into the price of every Apple device. Compared to the cost of building the network, what's $100 million on lobbying to nab some free spectrum? Alas, I think the current arrangement is working too well for Apple to want to tak…

Post by rdl » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

karamazov wrote: post #127

andylei wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the market cap of the company fell below the cash (net of debt obligations) of that company, the investors could liquidate the company, take the cash, and make a profit. thus, it's pretty atypically for market cap to dip below asset value, and even more atypical for market cap to dip below cash holdings.

Actually, finding companies whose market cap is less than asset value is a great way of insuring you're buying shares at a discount. This is pretty rare in technology companies, which are generally valued far above assets, but it's possible to find this sort of thing in more predictable sectors. For more information, you could look at Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor". This is a very good introduction to i…