Apple’s new Wall Street runaway hit: iDebt

By Ed Sutherland on May 1, 2013

Wall Street is nothing if not fickle. Questions over Apple’s future profits sent the company’s stock into a tailspin for the past six months, then a recovery of sorts is now underway.

The iPhone maker Tuesday floated a record $17 billion in debt, an action that literally had investors falling over themselves.

Consider that Apple up until now was literally the only major technology corporation with zero debt on its books. By the end of yesterday, $50 billion in orders were received for what now looks to be Apple’s latest hot product: the iDebt… Read More

 

Why Apple is borrowing money to pay for $60B stock buyback

By Ed Sutherland on Apr 26, 2013

To bolster its stock in the eyes of investors, Apple recently announced it would buy back $60 billion worth of shares. Such a move makes sense – after all, the iPhone maker does have this cash hoard of nearly $150 billion. However, it turns out Apple won’t touch that money, opting instead to borrow the funds.

By borrowing the money, Apple keeps its billions out of the reach of U.S. taxes, saving the corporate giant money while also retiring expensive stock dividends.

You didn’t think there was any altruism involved, did you? The move, however, isn’t without its pitfalls. Moreover, Apple isn’t alone in a corporate game of chess where it’s all about manipulating the tax code, according to a report Friday… Read More

 

New Apple supplier concerns drag share down

By Ed Sutherland on Mar 11, 2013

Spring is just around the corner, the sun is shining and new concerns about Apple suppliers appear like so many dandelions. Never mind CEO Tim Cook said it’s impossible to determine the health of the iPhone maker simply by looking at suppliers.

Just as Washington, DC trades in political rumors, Wall Street and Silicon Valley are back with new scuttlebutt about Apple’s supply chain.

As a result, Apple’s stock dipped lower Monday on word that orders to suppliers were the worst on record – at least for one analyst. Others believe higher sales of iPad minis versus the larger tablet is cause for concern, while still others forecast a slow summer and then return to profitability… Read More

 

AAPL dips below $400B, Buffett tells Cook to ignore cash complaints, buy back stock

By Ed Sutherland on Mar 4, 2013

You can’t get a better financial advisor than Warren Buffett. The so-called ‘Oracle of Omaha’ Monday weighed in on what Apple should do, faced with low stock prices and one investor’s call to use the iPhone maker’s billions in cash. Although Buffett’s appearance Monday morning on CNBC lasted three hours, the short version is this:

Apple CEO Tim Cook should buy his company’s stock while cheap. It’s uncertain whether the financial whiz will have any luck, seeing Cook’s predecessor Steve Jobs supposedly ignored similar advice. Coincidentally or not, Apple’s market capitalization dropped below $400 billion in early trading Monday, the first such drop since January 2012… Read More

 

Apple executives required to hold 3x base salary in AAPL stock

By Cody Lee on Mar 1, 2013

If you wanted to make sure that your business’ executive team was deeply committed to making it thrive, it’d probably be a good idea to make sure they held a lot of company stock. That way, their livelihoods directly depended on its success.

And that’s exactly the way it works at Apple. The company has amended its corporate bylaws to require that executive officers hold three times their annual (base) salary in AAPL stock, and it’s even higher for Tim Cook and his board of directors… Read More

 

Tim Cook talks new Apple campus, new products and more at shareholder meeting

By Cody Lee on Feb 27, 2013

Apple held its annual shareholder meeting this morning on its Cupertino campus. The company used the gathering to address concerns of investors, offer up some insight into its future, and of course to vote on a number of proposals.

Tim Cook did a lot of the talking, and fielded some pretty difficult questions from shareholders who are obviously disappointed with Apple’s recent stock slide. As usual, we have a roundup of all of the interesting stuff after the fold… Read More

 

Apple responds to recent calls for it to return cash to shareholders

By Cody Lee on Feb 7, 2013

Apple has just issued a statement regarding its commitment to return some of its extremely large—now more than $130 billion— cash pile to shareholders, saying that the company and its Board of Directors are in “active discussions” on what to do with its money.

The comment follows a press release sent to Apple investors this morning by Greenlight Capital, a major Apple shareholder, calling for the Cupertino-based iPhone maker to stop ‘hoarding its cash,’ and start returning some of it to its large base of stock holders… Read More

 

AAPL for a second time passes Exxon, GOOG hits new all-time high

By Christian Zibreg on Feb 1, 2013

Look, these things are not the be-all, end-all for business performance, but obviously market capitalization reflects investors’ expectations concerning Apple’s future performance. The iPhone maker last Friday hit a 52-week low and as a result ceded its top spot as the world’s most-valued publicly traded corporation to the oil giant Exxon.

AAPL shares have slowly been recovering since and today has surpassed the oil conglomerate for a second time in after-hours trading. The Cupertino firm now leads Exxon with a $10 billion market cap difference, but is Apple’s valuation sustainable in the long run? Read More

 

Are analysts responsible for AAPL decline?

By Ed Sutherland on Jan 25, 2013

So… Exxon passed Apple to reclaim the title of the World’s Most Valuable Corporation. But how much did Wall Street’s prognosticators have to do with Apple’s drop in value following its earnings report earlier this week?

While investors realize the company is facing stiff competition and potentially lower profits, a number of financial observers were way off in the predictions ahead of Wednesday results. Indeed, while Apple reported $54 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, analysts had forecast between $51.7 billion and $65.69 billion.

According to Fortune, some analysts were up to 17 percent wrong, while some well-known Wall Street Apple watchers came within 3 percent of the iPhone maker’s final numbers. Partially as a result of such wildly-varying forecasts, Apple is changing the way to releases its revenue guidance… Read More

 

Al Gore teaches us some nice AAPL stock tricks

By Ed Sutherland on Jan 18, 2013

I also have another headline: Al Gore profits from Apple losses. Regardless of where you stand, the debate over whether Apple’s iPhone is facing declining demand has now spread from simply a question of iOS versus Android. It’s about Benjamins, who wins and who loses. Facing the ‘threat’ of Apple share value rebounding when its quarterly sales numbers are released next Wednesday, investors are hoping the company’s stock remains low. Among them: former U.S. Vice President and Apple board member Al Gore.

Gore last week exercised options to buy 59,000 shares of Apple stock for only $7.475 per share. Because of the low option price versus the actual stock price of $495.2, he was able to buy Apple stock worth more than $29 million for just $441,000… Read More

 

Analyst says Apple sold 52 million iPhones last quarter

By Cody Lee on Jan 16, 2013

Apple’s quarterly earnings call is coming up next Wednesday, where the company will reveal its iPhone sales and other figures from the holiday quarter. And given its recent stock drop due to iPhone demand concerns, all of Wall Street will be watching.

Essentially, if the Cupertino company wants to stop the bleeding, it needs to report big numbers for last quarter. And according to KGI Securities’ well-connected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it will. He thinks Apple sold 52 million iPhones and 23 million iPads… Read More

 

Apple’s annual shareholders meeting to take place on February 27

By Cody Lee on Jan 16, 2013

Apple notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that it will be holding its annual shareholder meeting on February 27, and boy do they have a lot talk about.

The meeting will be held at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, where stock holders (as of January 2, 2013) will be able to attend and vote on a variety of proposed measures… Read More

 

Analysts cut AAPL target price average to $740

By Ed Sutherland on Dec 29, 2012

All of the concerns voiced about the impending leap off the ‘fiscal cliff’ and its associated increase in capital gains taxes on stock sales have sent Wall Street into a tizzy. The end result: knocking Apple’s target share price down to $740. Nearly a dozen analysts have cut their target price for Apple stock amid talk that the iPhone maker has a dodgy future, what with supply questions hanging over the executives at One Infinity Loop. Despite all the rain clouds, the $740 per share target price reduction is about $225 more than Friday’s opening on Wall Street… Read More

 

Even with strong iPhone 5 debut in China, analysts downgrade AAPL, sending shares below $500

By Ed Sutherland on Dec 17, 2012

Is the glass half-full, or half-empty? Apparently, when it comes to Apple’s stock, financial analysts in Europe and Asia are born pessimists. After Citigroup Sunday downgraded the iPhone maker’s stock from Buy to Neutral, shares fell below $497 in pre-market trading Monday. This after closing Friday at nearly $510. Analysts appear to have discounted the equally-positive news this morning that Apple’s two million iPhone 5 in three days in China broke a record… Read More

 

Here’s why AAPL hit 10-month low today

By Ed Sutherland on Dec 14, 2012

China’s influence over Apple’s financial health is growing. In fiscal 2011, the country accounted for sixteen percent of Apple’s revenues. But is Apple’s growth in China sustainable?

Friday, two analyst reduce forecasts amid what one described as a ‘muted’ response to today’s iPhone 5 release in the world’s largest market. As a result, Apple shares fell 3.9 percent to a ten-month low.

The decline also hurt a number of Apple’s suppliers as the firm is thought to be cutting orders in order “to balance excess inventory”. For example, Broadcom is down 3.13 percent and Qualcomm dropped 4.7 percent.

As a result, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek cut his iPhone shipment estimate for the first three months of 2013 to 48 million, down from 52 million. He also trimmed Apple’s expected gross profit margin to 40 percent, down two percentage points… Read More

 

Apple shares fall 4 percent amid heavy trading and post-Jobs era concerns

By Ed Sutherland on Dec 7, 2012

Questions about Apple’s future lead to heavy trading in the technology giant Wednesday afternoon, prompting a 4.2 percent drop to $551.50 per share and an almost 22 percent decline since it’s all-time high of $705 in September. More than 17 million shares were traded during midday action on Wall Street. Among questions facing investors: can Apple management perform without Steve Jobs, can the company produce another hit product, and can the iPad maker fend off Android… Read More

 

Apple’s Eddy Cue cashes in $9 million in company shares

By Cody Lee on Dec 5, 2012

Following in the footsteps of Bob Mansfield and other executives, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, and new head of Maps, Eddy Cue sold 15,000 shares of company stock last week. The selloff, which netted Cue nearly $9 million, was detailed in a filing published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday… Read More

 

Apple’s Technologies boss cashes in shares

By Christian Zibreg on Nov 30, 2012

Bob Mansfield, Apple’s un-retired SVP of Technologies, is another high-ranked executive to cash in shares of AAPL stock after an “insanely insane” sell-off that saw a quarter of Apple’s market cap wiped off. Like other executives, Mansfield likely figured the move makes financial sense ahead of a rumored “fiscal cliff”.

According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Mansfield, a long-time Apple veteran, unloaded 35,000 shares. At $582.21 a share, the transaction earned him $20,377,507.50. He still holds 29,548 shares and will get another 150,000 shares in June 2013 and March 2016 provided he stays with Apple.

Though Mansfield wanted to retire, Apple’s boss has managed to convince him to stick around for two more years. If Cook gave me a $2 million a month paycheck as a compensation for an advisement position, I’d also un-retire in a heartbeat…. Read More

 

Citi: Apple bottomed, stock set for rebound

By Ed Sutherland on Nov 26, 2012

After a six-month absence on the Apple watch, Citi has returned – and with a strong recommendation to buy shares of the consumer electronics giant. After hitting a particular rough patch that included a sell-off one observer called “the insanity of insanity”, Apple’s stock is set to rebound 20-50 percent.

Citi’s new Apple watcher, Glen Yeung, told investors Monday that Apple’s drop in share price has likely hit bottom. Indeed, in most cases, shares will climb back within twelve months. Yeung said the stock should hit $675… Read More

 

Disney CEO buys $1M of Apple stock, a vote of confidence amid insane sell-off

By Ed Sutherland on Nov 21, 2012

Disney CEO and Apple board member Bob Iger earlier this week purchased $1 million worth of shares of the iPhone maker, just one week after exercising an option on a million shares for $17.9 million. The move is seen as an attempt by the Disney executive to show confidence during a period of sell-offs one analyst described as “insane”.

Iger joined Apple’s board of directors a year ago and is credited with healing wounds between the two companies when his predecessor Michael Eisner led the studio. The executive purchased $1 million worth of Apple stock at the time, then worth near $375 per share. Under Iger, Disney has been a loyal supporter of Apple, permitting movies on iTunes during a time when other Hollywood content owners avoided Steve Jobs… Read More

 
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