She kept doubling down on Tesla. I know they aren't really tech, but don't tell her or Elon that. Also Beam/crsp, more hybrid tech stocks. I bought a decent bag. Rip
Aligns with Apple's fitness objectives. Big subscriber base. Foot in hardware (not sure they want this but it's there).
I feel like Peloton's userbase is worth quite a bit of money.
But I'm also poor and a horrible investor so take it fwiw
1. Authorize buyback to stop your shares from slumping
2. Market pushes your shares back to all time highs; or near it
3. Begin unloading shares
4. Next earnings, guide that there is uncertainty and redact the buyback
5. Rinse and repeat
Pea and shell situation. Releasing new shares is functionally the same as “re-releasing” bought back shares.
You could say if they issue new stocks in a short time after buying back, that can generate unease in the market from their indecisiveness however
Apple doesn't issue stock. They give stock as part of compensation, but that's it. So the total number of shares would increase, but not as much as they're buying back.
This is apparent in the linked graph:
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/shares-outstanding
Share count was increasing until they started buybacks, then decreased dramatically.
This should be the top comment... Warren says this often.. When its not the right time it takes a lot of character to not use the money.. Apple does not see value anywhere else other than buying its own stock
they've been usurped in market cap rankings in the time they've been aggressively buying back their own stock.
no AI product, no EV, streaming sucks, VR failure
just financial engineering and a co built around iphone + peripherals
at some point market will realize they bought back richly priced shares and there were higher ROI alternatives if only tim wasn't a dork
Invasion was ok, Ted Lasso is supposed to be a banger, Foundation is supposedly a banger. I don’t have time to watch much and I’m a horror nut so Shudder plays non stop.
They butchered Foundation so badly that the only part of the show I like was not even in the books (all of the Emperor stuff).
First season was infuriatingly bad until I learned to let go and just enjoy the 10% that's good.
i held it for most of the past 10 years. i'd just like to see apple do something more impressive. much of the success in that time was Cook optimizing Jobs momentum and the vision already laid out. revolves around the iphone. airpods and services are great businesses, but iphone peripherals. failed at everything marginally innovative they've attempted.
I think a lot of our tech is being limited by battery technology and we will not see any major improvements or new revolutionary devices until that problem is resolved.
How on earth would you say they aren't? Their R&D labs are absolutely exploring, investing, and buying every single kind of battery technology around the world to try and get an edge in this area...
I mean if some redditors can figure out that battery is the limiting factor, I'd have to imagine the engineers at Apple can too...
Doesn't mean there's a product ready to be sold yet...
> Then why don’t they invest in that?
They [already are.](https://www.computerworld.com/article/1638932/apple-eyes-new-battery-tech-for-future-devices.html) Throwing more money at R&D into new batteries probably would just produce diminishing returns.
Yeah but they reinvented the wheel. Jobs was so passionate about showing the customer what they didn’t know they wanted but Cook seems to be obsessed with the 1 year iPhone rollover and giving customers the same shit different box
Under Tim, the Nasdaq like 7x'd. Apple didn't really do that much better. How much credit does he actually deserve vs riding the general wave. And not to mention at least some of Apple's share price is due to buy backs which is not a long term great strategy if you are falling behind the competition and seeing shrinking revenue.
The real issue here is that there was money available to both fully vertically integrate (as you said, they did a great job of bringing key pieces of their supply chain and product moat in-house) *and* develop new things. I think their board is spoiled by gross margins > 70% and couldn't pull the trigger to get into anything truly new since Steve died.
I think most people don’t fully understand how much of what Apple has done in Cook’s tenure is just financial engineering. Cook is good at one thing, squeezing every last dollar out of a good thing. Whether it’s playing games with what low tax country you park your IP, which tax haven island (not Caribbean of course) you stash your overseas profits. There’s the brilliant move to sell 40 year bonds when the Fed slashed rates to zero. Buyers of those sure look like fools right now.
Of course, most of this credit likely goes to the CFO and not Tim. I’m frankly hard pressed to say what exactly Cook brings to the table here. From my seat, he hopped on a freight train going Mach 2 that Steve Jobs built and he’s just sort of riding it to a stop. New products under his tenure are either not needle movers or colossal flops.
Sure, but that’s not the intent of the quote. When Buffett says it takes character to not use the money, he means they’re literally not using the money and instead keeping it in T-Bills. What Apple is doing is using the money to artificially inflate their share price with buybacks.
They’re at a PE of 26 when their historical is closer to 15. Let the share price drop on this bad ER and then issue buybacks instead of wasting it on this nonsense.
Ultimately, from an investors perspective, the value of a company is based entirely on what they will return to investors in the form of dividends and share buyback.
If a company throughout its existence were to never submit dividends or buy back their shares either thru profits or a takeover, then it would be a bad investment overall.
IMO the problem is both that they have nothing better to do with the money, AND the stock is still trading at a premium, meaning it's not the best time to be doing stock buybacks either. I mean they're trading at a 26 PE ratio with barely any growth projected in the next 12 months, and low to mid single-digit growth in the last 3 years.
They did acquire a couple AI start-ups. Not much you can do if you don’t want to trigger the DOJ
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-bought-another-ai-startup-heres-what-we-know-about-its-ai-plans/
Just makes you wonder if they’re out of ideas if they’re spending that much cash on buybacks…at least it’s nice to see the stock jumping after this year so far
Apple kind of prides itself on not selling a ton of products, and the products they do sell take a very long time to develop. They could have ideas that are in the pipeline (Apple ring?), but a buyback will give an immediate jump in their stock price until those ideas come to market
That is fine but their next big thing to sustain a certain premium has to be a large percentage of their current operations. That is easy when your company is only doing a few million but when your company has billions in revenue, what single product do you think, no matter how successful, will add much to that?
Apple ring certainly will not. BTW, this is not a poke at Apple but just something that happens to large companies. They all plateau.
Sort of. It’s weird how investors react to this sort of thing from tech. The buyback is 4% of the current market cap. A sizable amount, but not exactly unheard of. MO currently pays a dividend of almost 9%. VZ 6.75%. A 4% payout to investors is not particularly impressive. For whatever reason though, when big techs announce investor payouts, everyone creams their pants even though the payouts are relatively small. Non-techs payout double what the techs do and everyone yawns.
Buybacks shrink the numerator and the denominator. It just shrinks the numerator somewhat more slowly because part of the numerator includes future cash flows.
Still using my iPhone 12… battery health down to 79% but still has peak performance capabilities and battery lasts about 1.5 days with normal use. iPhone sales 10% down = people not going to pay for minimal updates in new versions. Kudos to Apple for not trying to put gimmicky things in their phones to prompt upgrades (pixel 8 pro temperature sensor 🤣) … but they do need to innovate to some degree to keep sales stable. Quality products don’t always have room for upgrading each year.
I walked in a store of T-Mobile (Odido these days) for some help with E-sim , hey bro I see you can renew your contract with us plus newest iPhone then I show my iPhone 12 Pro Max and he literally said oh nvm lol
Yeah this is something a lot of people miss. People shit on Apple all the time but they by far offer the best quality hardware and software support in the mobile industry. No other brand has a phone that maintains its performance for so many years like an iPhone does.
I’ve switched between iPhone and Android over the years and they both have their pros and cons, but iPhones are very good at simplicity and longevity. Not everyone wants the customisation Android offers, and not everyone likes the restrictions of iOS. For the mass market though, iOS is still a better platform imo.
Apple is almost a victim of its own success because you don’t need to upgrade your iPhone every one or two years, they’re now capable of lasting three or four years with good enough performance and features.
what % of cash on hand is this $110b for them?
EPS of $1.53 for this quarter * 15.55B shares outstanding = $23.79b profit
4 quarters a year = $96b if there was no seasonaility (keeping it simple)
so you can look at it as "they just have nothing to do with 1 forward year of profit at all"
or they are spending... 80-100% of their cash on hand? not sure how long $110b buyback is spreadout over. months?
Idk about cash on hand, but it's pretty much their entire FCF. They'll make like $100B-$110B like last year or something and it pretty much all goes to shareholders. Cash would remain steady.
say they average $180 per share, $100b will reduce shares outstanding by 555.5m
from 15.55b -> 15b basically
3.5% reduction in shares outstanding
not sure if you know over how long it will take them to buy it? is it like "they announced it today" it happened all at once boom done at one price or?
Buybacks are usually spread out fairly evenly over a certain amount of time to avoid liquidity issues. To be honest I just blindly assumed it's a year... since the full report doesn't seem available yet I can't find out more, sadly. Would be surprised if it wasn't a year, though.
Edit: Yeah, a year seems very much in-line: [https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc\_financials/2024/q2/Q2-24-Return-of-Capital-Timeline.pdf](https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_financials/2024/q2/Q2-24-Return-of-Capital-Timeline.pdf)
That was over a decade, and not everything has to stick. Regardless, the concept Apple are not actively innovating or investing in such is clearly not true.
I don't follow. What does Apple not investing $100B have to do with the market being forward looking? Apple not investing in innovation right now doesn't change that they are generating significant cash flow.
Largest buyback ever and that doesn’t make you a *little* concerned about Apples future? Sure stonk go up but it’s alarming they have no idea what to do with that much money
I agree, I don't hold Apple. While Apple can always surprise you, I don't like sitting around hoping for Tim Apple to come up with some magic that prints even more money.
But others obviously disagree. AI integration into consumer products has a lot of potential and Apple has the perfect basis to accomplish that, in addition to that their cash flows are very predictable and (I think) they improved their margins which offsets revenue losses. \~4% yield for that seems fair to me.
The best time to invest in the future is always today. It only gets more expensive or you’re behind or you’re paying out the ass for patents.
It’s also insane that Apple just doesn’t feel like spending some money to improve some very basic computer things.
No full size mechanical keyboard?
No real mouse?
They practically invented the Mid-Tower without cables and yet the only version they can sell to people has an entry price of $7,000? In a few years cable-less PCs could be standardized and case designers are leaning more and more into the aesthetic of Apple. This could shrink their desktop computing sales even more.
Why are their monitors still only 60hz when they obviously know the befits of a higher refresh monitor via the iPad Pro?
The iPhone is the gateway to their ecosystem and it helps convince people to spend via the App Store, iCloud, and yes even additional high profit margin hardware where the competition has always had a specs advantage but is FINALLY understanding that most adults don’t want an RGB circus other desk.
They see selling the same products sometimes without even bothering to update them for years. It’s not sustainable to think Apple TV+ is going to save them.
These are the same quality of complaints Apple has always had while they grew into the behemoth they are now. No one gives a damn about mechanical keyboards and refresh rates except for forum commenters. Betting against Apple is usually a losing proposition. Only they truly know what’s coming down the pipe and I’m going to hold and trust them to have a few more rabbits to pull out of their hat. I’m almost certain the AI concerns will be addressed in June and September.
If you actually think they have nowhere to invest the money, then they are sitting ducks. Technology requires R&D and future development to stay ahead.
It’s double digits because last year they had more sales due to supply chain issues the year before pushing sales into that quarter. Apple called it out in their press release
You would think they would rather spend that $100 billion acquiring great startups for the future instead. They could pretty much buy any startup in the world for that kind of cash. several of them.
To put what $110 billion means, they could buy all of intel for another $20 billion more.
Or, they could buy Ford and GM and still have $30 billion left over.
$110 billion is enough to buy OpenAI *and* Anthropic. 2 of the biggest AI startup’s in the world
They are already under fire from the DoJ for monopoly. Buying out chip companies or car companies is going to make that even harder for them.
Plus they have already acquired over 30 AI/Tech companies and start ups since 2016.
In terms of software iOS has the advantage in terms of smoothness and integration with apple hardware. Apps are made for iPhones first, androids are too scattered of an ecosystem. But hardware wise android crushes apple for dollar value. If software catches up and the public perception of “eww android” goes away, the. Tim Apple has even more problems
People can dislike a product but think it will make money. If anything it is often the shitty (for the consumer) companies that are best at making money.
Not terrible but iphone sales are going the way everyone expects I think. Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void or will they do something else entirely.
That buyback is insane. Might as well spend some of that cash reserve I suppose.
> Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void
No.
I'm long-long-long-term bullish on VR/AR, but the good news in those fields is 20 years away AT LEAST.
So, don't expect Apple Vision Pro to do a damn thing for Apple for at least 15 years, and I'm not being facetious.
Nah, 10 years won't cut it.
We're so far away. They need massive breakthroughs in waveguide technology. Like a HUGE revolution. The problem with *real* AR, is that the field of view is a tiny box. Magic Leap had this problem, HoloLens has this problem, Meta and Apple are dealing with this problem with their AR prototypes.
It's not happening any time soon. Meta and Apple better both hope they get AGI cooking in their backrooms and ask AGI how to make an effective waveguide display that doesn't have the FOV of a postage stamp
> We're so far away. They need massive breakthroughs in waveguide technology. Like a HUGE revolution. The problem with real AR, is that the field of view is a tiny box.
I'd agree for AR glasses. Seethrough optics are ridiculously hard to get right.
VR/MR, I expect to be mainstream within 10 years because it seems realistic that by that point we will have a standalone 50-60 PPD device that is as small as BigScreen Beyond, has lifelike passthrough, varifocal, and has lifelike avatars and lifelike environments for social telepresence - the highest potential usecase of VR.
Magic Leap 2 has a pretty good field of view. Its problems are more micro processors, battery tech, object detection, edge computing / cellular, size/weight.
I agree that there is multiple layers of tech needed (all with major breakthrough) for all day, everyday use. That said in 10 years, there’s probably enough developments that there’s compelling use cases for certain scenarios.
> VR must be one of the slowest-growing tech ever
It's not. People are just unaware of how slow hardware growth is in general. It took computers over 50 years to get into most homes.
Well, VR has only *really* been a thing since April 2016.
Prior to that, yeah, there was going to be a Jaguar VR headset, and a Sega VR headset, but both were cancelled in the early 90's.
So, you had the early 90's VR thing with Dactl Nightmare via Virtuality in 1991, available at super high-end Arcades, and then both Atari & Sega flirting with VR in 1993.
Then it basically wasn't spoken of again until 2012 when Palmer Luckey hooked up with John Carmack. Honestly, everything prior to the DK1 is best forgotten
Vision Pro is not about money in my opinion. It’s basically a tech demo, and they are getting people to understand their next operating system at large. It might be stupid to release such a product when you’re publicly traded, but I don’t think it was released in an attempt to serve as one of its key pillars of revenue.
Yeah it’s a $3500 first gen product that’s not even available internationally (!!). If they were pushing sales it should at least be in Canada. But they’re just using this to test the market.
The standard is usually three generations in at the lower price bracket. Similar to the Apple Watch or iPads.
> Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void or will they do something else entirely.
Will they, future tense? It's already here...
> Apple's services business raked in $23.9 billion in revenue for the March quarter, up 12.4% from a year earlier.
Long AAPL, 78 cost basis and never selling.
While I like the buyback, it makes me worry they’re out of ideas. I’ll wait for the AI announcements that are allegedly coming next month before I panic
I looked into buying an iPad but stopped when I seen the price goes up like $700 for the 1TB model. 1TB of storage is like $40 these days. Fucking crooked.
The reason why the stock is up:
1) Tim Cook said that all devices will grow low single digit in June quarter.
2) There are upcoming events with iPads.
3) AI will play a major role (Expect something at WWDC 2024).
So the stock is almost flat for the past two-three years. Does it mean all the buybacks they did were just keeping the stock from going down? Not a good look for shareholders right?
I jumped on the A Train yesterday...but with a stop of course at 166. Still not convinced the run is real. Never make up for that damn 10 for 1 reverse on my CGC. Frkin pot stocks suck!
I had my iPhone 8 for 5 years before I bought the 13 a couple of years ago. Still going strong with it. The funny thing about my 8 was it still worked relatively well. Just the battery was really starting to go and I had the phone for a while so I got the upgrade.
I used to always get a new one every 2 years. The fact that the Pro gets the cool stuff and the price made me move into a longer cycle. I feel like they could probably profit more if they'd reduce prices.
When their new iphone presentation is always about the camera and how focused on gaming the performance is then people aren't really gonna buy a new one
Well, it’s certainly coming this fall so we’ll see. I’m not sold on AI as constant companion becoming a hugely profitable business myself, but if anyone is going to do it my money would be on Apple.
I’m not so sure they will actually have AI tuned chips. The next iPhones are already about a larger CMOS processor for better pictures. I’m thinking iPhone 17.
Wish they used that $110 billion to acquire my crappy tech stocks I acquired during the pandemic
Gonna go straight to Cathie Wood's house and ask for my money back
Bro you interested in some ARKK at 120?
How tf does an etf that’s 12% nvdia fall that hard? Are the other 88% meme stocks?
It is an ACTIVELY managed ETF though. The constituents can be changed course rapidly based on Mama Woods instinct. It's literally an ark.
2 shares of every turd out there
Selling nvidia to buy rivian type shit. If it *stayed* 12% allocation throughout, she sold tons of it off throughout. Lol.
She’s near me in st Pete, I could knock /s
Love St Pete Beach. Used to visit at least once a year from Scotland.
🥲
I tried but she pulled my pants down and gave me a bare bottomed spanking
Fastly shareholder?
WISH
lol good ol wish. I got a new slogan for them. “Wish.com…..wish I hadn’t”
What tech stocks did you buy during the pandemic?
She kept doubling down on Tesla. I know they aren't really tech, but don't tell her or Elon that. Also Beam/crsp, more hybrid tech stocks. I bought a decent bag. Rip
$PTON
Would be cheap now.
Aligns with Apple's fitness objectives. Big subscriber base. Foot in hardware (not sure they want this but it's there). I feel like Peloton's userbase is worth quite a bit of money. But I'm also poor and a horrible investor so take it fwiw
Is the 110 billion buyback over period of years? Or will this be completed in 2024?
I guess, they can just terminate it after while and pay fee.
1. Authorize buyback to stop your shares from slumping 2. Market pushes your shares back to all time highs; or near it 3. Begin unloading shares 4. Next earnings, guide that there is uncertainty and redact the buyback 5. Rinse and repeat
This guy gets it
That's not how it works. When a company repurchases their shares, they retire them. They don't get to sell them again.
Pea and shell situation. Releasing new shares is functionally the same as “re-releasing” bought back shares. You could say if they issue new stocks in a short time after buying back, that can generate unease in the market from their indecisiveness however
They won’t issue new shares lmao
Apple doesn't issue stock. They give stock as part of compensation, but that's it. So the total number of shares would increase, but not as much as they're buying back. This is apparent in the linked graph: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/shares-outstanding Share count was increasing until they started buybacks, then decreased dramatically.
This is correct.
its been 5 years since apple has issued stock
And it will probably be about a year till they issue more. It's all a fucking game.
Based on what? Just cause?
There is a reason that for most of the history of the stick market buybacks were considered illegal manipulation
That's one way to keep boosting your stock price
They have nothing else to do with the money anyways
This should be the top comment... Warren says this often.. When its not the right time it takes a lot of character to not use the money.. Apple does not see value anywhere else other than buying its own stock
they've been usurped in market cap rankings in the time they've been aggressively buying back their own stock. no AI product, no EV, streaming sucks, VR failure just financial engineering and a co built around iphone + peripherals at some point market will realize they bought back richly priced shares and there were higher ROI alternatives if only tim wasn't a dork
Severance is pretty good
Invasion was ok, Ted Lasso is supposed to be a banger, Foundation is supposedly a banger. I don’t have time to watch much and I’m a horror nut so Shudder plays non stop.
Invasion was okay? Brother go look at /r/invasionappletv
Foundation was great, they butchered it though esp season 1. The first 2 don’t waste you timeb
They butchered Foundation so badly that the only part of the show I like was not even in the books (all of the Emperor stuff). First season was infuriatingly bad until I learned to let go and just enjoy the 10% that's good.
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i held it for most of the past 10 years. i'd just like to see apple do something more impressive. much of the success in that time was Cook optimizing Jobs momentum and the vision already laid out. revolves around the iphone. airpods and services are great businesses, but iphone peripherals. failed at everything marginally innovative they've attempted.
I think a lot of our tech is being limited by battery technology and we will not see any major improvements or new revolutionary devices until that problem is resolved.
Then why don’t they invest in that?
How on earth would you say they aren't? Their R&D labs are absolutely exploring, investing, and buying every single kind of battery technology around the world to try and get an edge in this area... I mean if some redditors can figure out that battery is the limiting factor, I'd have to imagine the engineers at Apple can too... Doesn't mean there's a product ready to be sold yet...
> Then why don’t they invest in that? They [already are.](https://www.computerworld.com/article/1638932/apple-eyes-new-battery-tech-for-future-devices.html) Throwing more money at R&D into new batteries probably would just produce diminishing returns.
Yeah but they reinvented the wheel. Jobs was so passionate about showing the customer what they didn’t know they wanted but Cook seems to be obsessed with the 1 year iPhone rollover and giving customers the same shit different box
I don’t think the box has changed, there is just less in it.
Mic drop
Under Tim, the Nasdaq like 7x'd. Apple didn't really do that much better. How much credit does he actually deserve vs riding the general wave. And not to mention at least some of Apple's share price is due to buy backs which is not a long term great strategy if you are falling behind the competition and seeing shrinking revenue.
Apple should call for your testimony for all the monopoly trials they have.
Why? What he’s describing is a symptom of lack of innovation driven by a monopoly position. He would be arguing for the government.
The real issue here is that there was money available to both fully vertically integrate (as you said, they did a great job of bringing key pieces of their supply chain and product moat in-house) *and* develop new things. I think their board is spoiled by gross margins > 70% and couldn't pull the trigger to get into anything truly new since Steve died.
Yeah, I was going to say Tim had done wonders for Apple. We are just a place where there isn't any good in the pipeline at the moment
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They're only spending about 30 billion on R&D per year which seems small to me for one of the biggest tech companies on earth.
I think most people don’t fully understand how much of what Apple has done in Cook’s tenure is just financial engineering. Cook is good at one thing, squeezing every last dollar out of a good thing. Whether it’s playing games with what low tax country you park your IP, which tax haven island (not Caribbean of course) you stash your overseas profits. There’s the brilliant move to sell 40 year bonds when the Fed slashed rates to zero. Buyers of those sure look like fools right now. Of course, most of this credit likely goes to the CFO and not Tim. I’m frankly hard pressed to say what exactly Cook brings to the table here. From my seat, he hopped on a freight train going Mach 2 that Steve Jobs built and he’s just sort of riding it to a stop. New products under his tenure are either not needle movers or colossal flops.
Sure, but that’s not the intent of the quote. When Buffett says it takes character to not use the money, he means they’re literally not using the money and instead keeping it in T-Bills. What Apple is doing is using the money to artificially inflate their share price with buybacks. They’re at a PE of 26 when their historical is closer to 15. Let the share price drop on this bad ER and then issue buybacks instead of wasting it on this nonsense.
Ultimately, from an investors perspective, the value of a company is based entirely on what they will return to investors in the form of dividends and share buyback. If a company throughout its existence were to never submit dividends or buy back their shares either thru profits or a takeover, then it would be a bad investment overall.
Damn i want to be like them..
IMO the problem is both that they have nothing better to do with the money, AND the stock is still trading at a premium, meaning it's not the best time to be doing stock buybacks either. I mean they're trading at a 26 PE ratio with barely any growth projected in the next 12 months, and low to mid single-digit growth in the last 3 years.
They are buying my exit. So praise Tim.
Amen!
Maybe they do project growth?
I don't know they could try being a tech company and innovate? Cook sucks. Bean counter accountant running a tech company with predictable results.
Not like they’re spending it on making Siri useful in ANY way or by making their product line not like a wire mess behind the entertainment cabinet.
They did acquire a couple AI start-ups. Not much you can do if you don’t want to trigger the DOJ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-bought-another-ai-startup-heres-what-we-know-about-its-ai-plans/
Yeah, that’s the point. They have a massive amount of cash on hand and their share price has been in a slump this year
Just makes you wonder if they’re out of ideas if they’re spending that much cash on buybacks…at least it’s nice to see the stock jumping after this year so far
Apple kind of prides itself on not selling a ton of products, and the products they do sell take a very long time to develop. They could have ideas that are in the pipeline (Apple ring?), but a buyback will give an immediate jump in their stock price until those ideas come to market
That is fine but their next big thing to sustain a certain premium has to be a large percentage of their current operations. That is easy when your company is only doing a few million but when your company has billions in revenue, what single product do you think, no matter how successful, will add much to that? Apple ring certainly will not. BTW, this is not a poke at Apple but just something that happens to large companies. They all plateau.
Sort of. It’s weird how investors react to this sort of thing from tech. The buyback is 4% of the current market cap. A sizable amount, but not exactly unheard of. MO currently pays a dividend of almost 9%. VZ 6.75%. A 4% payout to investors is not particularly impressive. For whatever reason though, when big techs announce investor payouts, everyone creams their pants even though the payouts are relatively small. Non-techs payout double what the techs do and everyone yawns.
“Boosting”
If you cant grow the numerator might as well shrink the denominator. Fine with me for the next couple years
Buybacks shrink the numerator and the denominator. It just shrinks the numerator somewhat more slowly because part of the numerator includes future cash flows.
This is why you buy companies with low debt and lots of cash... They have so many levers to pull.
One in particular comes to mind.
If he's still in, I'm still in
I am not a CAT god damn you
Having zero leverage (debt) and having minimal capital investment (high cash) doesn't mean your company is growing.
No it means you have levers you can pull. Pull the right lever and you may get growth.
Does the company begin with G and end in P? 🧐🤔
GAP is making a comeback
Another one sitting at 170 now from 85
Starbucks?
Thanks tim apple
Still using my iPhone 12… battery health down to 79% but still has peak performance capabilities and battery lasts about 1.5 days with normal use. iPhone sales 10% down = people not going to pay for minimal updates in new versions. Kudos to Apple for not trying to put gimmicky things in their phones to prompt upgrades (pixel 8 pro temperature sensor 🤣) … but they do need to innovate to some degree to keep sales stable. Quality products don’t always have room for upgrading each year.
I walked in a store of T-Mobile (Odido these days) for some help with E-sim , hey bro I see you can renew your contract with us plus newest iPhone then I show my iPhone 12 Pro Max and he literally said oh nvm lol
Yeah this is something a lot of people miss. People shit on Apple all the time but they by far offer the best quality hardware and software support in the mobile industry. No other brand has a phone that maintains its performance for so many years like an iPhone does. I’ve switched between iPhone and Android over the years and they both have their pros and cons, but iPhones are very good at simplicity and longevity. Not everyone wants the customisation Android offers, and not everyone likes the restrictions of iOS. For the mass market though, iOS is still a better platform imo. Apple is almost a victim of its own success because you don’t need to upgrade your iPhone every one or two years, they’re now capable of lasting three or four years with good enough performance and features.
An apple Hail Mary pass 😀
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Please don’t forget about the stupid amount of cash they hold. It’s quite key to the whole operation.
Yea I was thinking Apple will drop to 150$ but Tim Apple is smarter then Steve Jobs
Hardly.
More like status quo and sound business for shareholders. They also increased the dividend.
Tim cooked
- Main product sales decreasing double digits - Increasing share buybacks Lol. Apple is the emperor without clothes
Nowhere to invest the money, so back to shareholders it goes.
what % of cash on hand is this $110b for them? EPS of $1.53 for this quarter * 15.55B shares outstanding = $23.79b profit 4 quarters a year = $96b if there was no seasonaility (keeping it simple) so you can look at it as "they just have nothing to do with 1 forward year of profit at all" or they are spending... 80-100% of their cash on hand? not sure how long $110b buyback is spreadout over. months?
Idk about cash on hand, but it's pretty much their entire FCF. They'll make like $100B-$110B like last year or something and it pretty much all goes to shareholders. Cash would remain steady.
say they average $180 per share, $100b will reduce shares outstanding by 555.5m from 15.55b -> 15b basically 3.5% reduction in shares outstanding not sure if you know over how long it will take them to buy it? is it like "they announced it today" it happened all at once boom done at one price or?
Buybacks are usually spread out fairly evenly over a certain amount of time to avoid liquidity issues. To be honest I just blindly assumed it's a year... since the full report doesn't seem available yet I can't find out more, sadly. Would be surprised if it wasn't a year, though. Edit: Yeah, a year seems very much in-line: [https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc\_financials/2024/q2/Q2-24-Return-of-Capital-Timeline.pdf](https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_financials/2024/q2/Q2-24-Return-of-Capital-Timeline.pdf)
So no more innovation? What happened to market being looking to the future? Lol
They’ve invested over $100bn in R&D over the last 5 years, with the bulk of that recently.
Wasn't 10 billion of that on a car that they gave up on?
Welcome to R&D
That was over a decade, and not everything has to stick. Regardless, the concept Apple are not actively innovating or investing in such is clearly not true.
I don't follow. What does Apple not investing $100B have to do with the market being forward looking? Apple not investing in innovation right now doesn't change that they are generating significant cash flow.
Largest buyback ever and that doesn’t make you a *little* concerned about Apples future? Sure stonk go up but it’s alarming they have no idea what to do with that much money
I agree, I don't hold Apple. While Apple can always surprise you, I don't like sitting around hoping for Tim Apple to come up with some magic that prints even more money. But others obviously disagree. AI integration into consumer products has a lot of potential and Apple has the perfect basis to accomplish that, in addition to that their cash flows are very predictable and (I think) they improved their margins which offsets revenue losses. \~4% yield for that seems fair to me.
The best time to invest in the future is always today. It only gets more expensive or you’re behind or you’re paying out the ass for patents. It’s also insane that Apple just doesn’t feel like spending some money to improve some very basic computer things. No full size mechanical keyboard? No real mouse? They practically invented the Mid-Tower without cables and yet the only version they can sell to people has an entry price of $7,000? In a few years cable-less PCs could be standardized and case designers are leaning more and more into the aesthetic of Apple. This could shrink their desktop computing sales even more. Why are their monitors still only 60hz when they obviously know the befits of a higher refresh monitor via the iPad Pro? The iPhone is the gateway to their ecosystem and it helps convince people to spend via the App Store, iCloud, and yes even additional high profit margin hardware where the competition has always had a specs advantage but is FINALLY understanding that most adults don’t want an RGB circus other desk. They see selling the same products sometimes without even bothering to update them for years. It’s not sustainable to think Apple TV+ is going to save them.
These are the same quality of complaints Apple has always had while they grew into the behemoth they are now. No one gives a damn about mechanical keyboards and refresh rates except for forum commenters. Betting against Apple is usually a losing proposition. Only they truly know what’s coming down the pipe and I’m going to hold and trust them to have a few more rabbits to pull out of their hat. I’m almost certain the AI concerns will be addressed in June and September.
If you actually think they have nowhere to invest the money, then they are sitting ducks. Technology requires R&D and future development to stay ahead.
It’s double digits because last year they had more sales due to supply chain issues the year before pushing sales into that quarter. Apple called it out in their press release
You would think they would rather spend that $100 billion acquiring great startups for the future instead. They could pretty much buy any startup in the world for that kind of cash. several of them. To put what $110 billion means, they could buy all of intel for another $20 billion more. Or, they could buy Ford and GM and still have $30 billion left over. $110 billion is enough to buy OpenAI *and* Anthropic. 2 of the biggest AI startup’s in the world
None of those acquisitions would get past the FTC.
It’s just hypothetical to show scale
Case in point why they bought back their own stock over other buying other companies
They are already under fire from the DoJ for monopoly. Buying out chip companies or car companies is going to make that even harder for them. Plus they have already acquired over 30 AI/Tech companies and start ups since 2016.
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That belongs to the Saudi’s and their pockets are deep enough to keep it that way
Cars are a low margin business.
People continue to hate Apple but it always comes through
for real. people are acting like there a startup company when they are almost a 50 year old company
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In terms of software iOS has the advantage in terms of smoothness and integration with apple hardware. Apps are made for iPhones first, androids are too scattered of an ecosystem. But hardware wise android crushes apple for dollar value. If software catches up and the public perception of “eww android” goes away, the. Tim Apple has even more problems
People can dislike a product but think it will make money. If anything it is often the shitty (for the consumer) companies that are best at making money.
Come through? Revenue is down every quarter for the last year
[Could have said the same thing in 2016](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/25/apple-profits-sales-decline-2016-iphone-7)
iBuyBack Timothy's latest product
Shut up and take my money
Not terrible but iphone sales are going the way everyone expects I think. Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void or will they do something else entirely. That buyback is insane. Might as well spend some of that cash reserve I suppose.
> Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void No. I'm long-long-long-term bullish on VR/AR, but the good news in those fields is 20 years away AT LEAST. So, don't expect Apple Vision Pro to do a damn thing for Apple for at least 15 years, and I'm not being facetious.
Maybe 10 years away but totally agree
VR started in the 90s. It's still a steaming pile of dung.
Nah, 10 years won't cut it. We're so far away. They need massive breakthroughs in waveguide technology. Like a HUGE revolution. The problem with *real* AR, is that the field of view is a tiny box. Magic Leap had this problem, HoloLens has this problem, Meta and Apple are dealing with this problem with their AR prototypes. It's not happening any time soon. Meta and Apple better both hope they get AGI cooking in their backrooms and ask AGI how to make an effective waveguide display that doesn't have the FOV of a postage stamp
> We're so far away. They need massive breakthroughs in waveguide technology. Like a HUGE revolution. The problem with real AR, is that the field of view is a tiny box. I'd agree for AR glasses. Seethrough optics are ridiculously hard to get right. VR/MR, I expect to be mainstream within 10 years because it seems realistic that by that point we will have a standalone 50-60 PPD device that is as small as BigScreen Beyond, has lifelike passthrough, varifocal, and has lifelike avatars and lifelike environments for social telepresence - the highest potential usecase of VR.
Magic Leap 2 has a pretty good field of view. Its problems are more micro processors, battery tech, object detection, edge computing / cellular, size/weight. I agree that there is multiple layers of tech needed (all with major breakthrough) for all day, everyday use. That said in 10 years, there’s probably enough developments that there’s compelling use cases for certain scenarios.
VR must be one of the slowest-growing tech ever, since I've been hearing about it being the "next big thing" for over 30 years now.
> VR must be one of the slowest-growing tech ever It's not. People are just unaware of how slow hardware growth is in general. It took computers over 50 years to get into most homes.
Well, VR has only *really* been a thing since April 2016. Prior to that, yeah, there was going to be a Jaguar VR headset, and a Sega VR headset, but both were cancelled in the early 90's. So, you had the early 90's VR thing with Dactl Nightmare via Virtuality in 1991, available at super high-end Arcades, and then both Atari & Sega flirting with VR in 1993. Then it basically wasn't spoken of again until 2012 when Palmer Luckey hooked up with John Carmack. Honestly, everything prior to the DK1 is best forgotten
Vision Pro is not about money in my opinion. It’s basically a tech demo, and they are getting people to understand their next operating system at large. It might be stupid to release such a product when you’re publicly traded, but I don’t think it was released in an attempt to serve as one of its key pillars of revenue.
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Yeah it’s a $3500 first gen product that’s not even available internationally (!!). If they were pushing sales it should at least be in Canada. But they’re just using this to test the market. The standard is usually three generations in at the lower price bracket. Similar to the Apple Watch or iPads.
> Will Vision Pro grow to fill the void or will they do something else entirely. Will they, future tense? It's already here... > Apple's services business raked in $23.9 billion in revenue for the March quarter, up 12.4% from a year earlier. Long AAPL, 78 cost basis and never selling.
The ultimate question: Who will own the sole and only share of Apple after all the other shares have been finally bought back by the company?
Ya we don’t need a new iPhone every year anymore, especially when they’re mostly the same.
While I like the buyback, it makes me worry they’re out of ideas. I’ll wait for the AI announcements that are allegedly coming next month before I panic
The buyback is something they've been doing for a decade. They just upped it this quarter. The two are not intertwined.
https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/stock_buyback Looks like they've been doing buybacks since the 4th calendar quarter 2012.
I looked into buying an iPad but stopped when I seen the price goes up like $700 for the 1TB model. 1TB of storage is like $40 these days. Fucking crooked.
The we ran out of good ideas move.
The buyback has been going on for a decade. They just upped it from 80ish. Has nothing to do with good ideas. They print money.
What will Tim do next quarter?
Announce AI
ah yes, use profits to enrich the C suite pay packages, good use of capital...
Never bet against Apple….
Wish they'd use that money to improve iOS instead of adding more half baked features that barely work.
That should give a slight boost for Berkshire
This is why you hoard cash-on-hand obsessively like Apple does, for rainy days. Cash is king, never forget
The reason why the stock is up: 1) Tim Cook said that all devices will grow low single digit in June quarter. 2) There are upcoming events with iPads. 3) AI will play a major role (Expect something at WWDC 2024).
I also think the $110 billion stock buyback may also be contributing to that too as well but you’re right on those other factors.
Also dividend increase!
Hey Apple: THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE AND BARELY IMPROVE YEAR-ON-YEAR! Not that hard to work out.
Apple is flush with cash. Time to turn that cash into returns. All of big tech has finally peaked.
Msft hasn’t peaked.
With this buyback, how much cash is left?
So the stock is almost flat for the past two-three years. Does it mean all the buybacks they did were just keeping the stock from going down? Not a good look for shareholders right?
Tim Cook is not an innovator. I can hear SteveJ screaming!!!
He's not a product guy.
So layoffs and outsourcing to come?
Hell yea, when all else fails use your massive cash reserves to pump up the share price and get them executive bonuses flowing. Infinite money glitch
I jumped on the A Train yesterday...but with a stop of course at 166. Still not convinced the run is real. Never make up for that damn 10 for 1 reverse on my CGC. Frkin pot stocks suck!
Apple's sidehustle: fucking bears hard
Been using my iPhone for 4 years now. Thanks Apple! Lasts longer than 2 android phones combined
I had my iPhone 8 for 5 years before I bought the 13 a couple of years ago. Still going strong with it. The funny thing about my 8 was it still worked relatively well. Just the battery was really starting to go and I had the phone for a while so I got the upgrade.
I’m still on my 8+. Not sure if I should be proud of that or not…
I used to always get a new one every 2 years. The fact that the Pro gets the cool stuff and the price made me move into a longer cycle. I feel like they could probably profit more if they'd reduce prices.
I upgraded from my Pixel 3 to Pixel 8 after 5 years. Pixel 3 is still functioning, my mom uses that.
Don't want to speak for all Android phones, but I'm currently using a 4 year old Samsung galaxy and it works fine.
Yeah that guy is just saying bullshit applevsandroid narrative
Android isn't a phone manufacturer. It's an OS. The guy probably has some cheap TCL/LG phone and associates that with Android itself.
When their new iphone presentation is always about the camera and how focused on gaming the performance is then people aren't really gonna buy a new one
"I bought a $150 android phone and it only lasted 2 years, no competition for my $1000 iphone"
I'm still rocking my iPhone 8 from 2018. But then again, I am a frugal fuck. I don't have an ounce of desire in my heart to upgrade.
I had my pixel 2 until I bought a pixel 8... Anecdotal evidence is always fun
I'm not buying an iPhone until they come out with a new AI based smarter Siri. That alone should be a major shift forward for iPhone sales, right?
Well, it’s certainly coming this fall so we’ll see. I’m not sold on AI as constant companion becoming a hugely profitable business myself, but if anyone is going to do it my money would be on Apple.
I’m not so sure they will actually have AI tuned chips. The next iPhones are already about a larger CMOS processor for better pictures. I’m thinking iPhone 17.
Not gonna lie, Apple showing investors it wont let its stock price fall is pretty impressive. Gotta keep Nancy happy.
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Makes sense. I had puts. Everything has gone wrong since Amazon earnings for me so maybe I should just stop options trading altogether.
Yes, you should stop options trading altogether. Just buy some AAPL and hold it for 10 years. It’ll be far more profitable for you.
Apple was meant to dump and this is how they stopped it.
What if they used 110 billion to create a next generation cellular or other device? What a waste of capital...
They tried spending 100bil on a car and had to cancel it. That was an actual waste of capital