Set for early Monday morning at 6:00AM Pacific Daylight Time. This is 30 minutes before the stock market opens. Ouch, I wouldn’t want to be short the stock this morning… as that could be really painful depending on the decision by management.
I’ve already stated my take on this. Don’t really care for a dividend (have to pay taxes on it). If it’s a one time thing for this year, whatever… but if it’s a regular dividend policy, that is going to suck starting in 2013 when the distinction between ordinary and qualified dividends disappear (as the government’s only solution is to tax, tax, tax…) where dividend income will be taxed based on your income bracket.
I‘m all for a share repurchase program though. Even at current levels, AAPL is a screaming buy for me (again, my opinion + disclaimer at the top). Management knows a heck of a lot more about what they have in the pipeline and whether or not that will continue to contribute to long term growth (or even further accelerate if they get into other areas), meaning further share price appreciation.
I don’t believe they will announce anything like a forward stock split (since that has nothing to do with their cash position which is what this CC is about). As said before, a split doesn’t do anything – I say this from a perspective as a current shareholder. Yes, I do understand for those who may not hold the stock, a forward split can make the per share price more attractive. However, at current levels, it isn’t necessarily unaffordable to buy 1 or 2 shares. I can see IF it does eventually hit the $1k mark though, where it does become more difficult for smaller investors to come up with $1k to buy a share. If we take out all three 2-for-1 splits (1987, 2000, and 2005), one share of AAPL would be $4,680 (based on the March 15th close) today. Safe to say that many smaller investors would find it difficult to buy just one share (which is not a desired outcome). tl;dr – there will be a time when the company will do a forward split but I don’t believe that it will happen for awhile.
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