Apple stock closes above $550, breaks into positive territory for the year
At the close of Friday's trading on the NASDAQ exchange, Apple's stock settled at $556 --?up 10 points on the day -- marking the first time that shares of the iPhone maker have closed above $550 this year.
Apple came into 2013 at $554 but slipped to $549 on Jan. 2, the first trading day of the year. Shares dipped as low as $392 in mid-April?--?a trough nearly matched again in June, and one for which some analysts blamed opportunistic short sellers --?but have recovered steadily since the summer.
Cupertino again broke $500 in the days leading up the announcement of the flagship iPhone 5s and mid-range iPhone 5c, and has continued to climb on the back of strong sales of the handsets as well as the all-new iPad Air and second-generation iPad mini, which now comes equipped with a Retina display.
The company's stock resurgence has still not satisfied its most vocal investors, however.
Activist investor Carl Icahn --?who revealed a $2.5 billion position in August that has since swelled to over $4 billion --?continues to call for an increase in Apple's stock buyback program, which is already the largest such program in corporate history. Icahn has pressed the issue in person during meetings with Apple CEO Tim Cook, exchanges which are said to have been "a little testy."
Adding to the pressure from Wall Street is Greenlight Capital chairman David Einhorn, who earlier in the year famously sued Apple for keeping what he believed to be too much cash on hand. Though Einhorn dropped the lawsuit, he still believes Apple is not doing enough with its over $140 billion in cash, telling CNBC that he believes "More could be done that would unlock probably even more value, but it's not so bad at this point that I want to complain about it."
As of October, Apple's corporate cash hoard represented more than 10 percent of all non-financial corporate reserves in the United States.
Apple came into 2013 at $554 but slipped to $549 on Jan. 2, the first trading day of the year. Shares dipped as low as $392 in mid-April?--?a trough nearly matched again in June, and one for which some analysts blamed opportunistic short sellers --?but have recovered steadily since the summer.
Cupertino again broke $500 in the days leading up the announcement of the flagship iPhone 5s and mid-range iPhone 5c, and has continued to climb on the back of strong sales of the handsets as well as the all-new iPad Air and second-generation iPad mini, which now comes equipped with a Retina display.
The company's stock resurgence has still not satisfied its most vocal investors, however.
Activist investor Carl Icahn --?who revealed a $2.5 billion position in August that has since swelled to over $4 billion --?continues to call for an increase in Apple's stock buyback program, which is already the largest such program in corporate history. Icahn has pressed the issue in person during meetings with Apple CEO Tim Cook, exchanges which are said to have been "a little testy."
Adding to the pressure from Wall Street is Greenlight Capital chairman David Einhorn, who earlier in the year famously sued Apple for keeping what he believed to be too much cash on hand. Though Einhorn dropped the lawsuit, he still believes Apple is not doing enough with its over $140 billion in cash, telling CNBC that he believes "More could be done that would unlock probably even more value, but it's not so bad at this point that I want to complain about it."
As of October, Apple's corporate cash hoard represented more than 10 percent of all non-financial corporate reserves in the United States.
Comments
The fandroids have been pretty quiet of late with all this positive Apple news and soaring stock price.
Hope everyone is happier now, since so many of you really care more about the stock than the technology.
Oh, they’ll drum up a false story and send it plunging again next week; you’ll see. I have full confidence in the speculators that they won’t let a good deed go unravaged.
Their mom took away their Internet privileges.
The fandroids have been pretty quiet of late with all this positive Apple news and soaring stock price.
Reality has never stopped them, or us, before. They attack us, we attack them. It’s like a scene out of the Godfather or West Side Story... two rival gangs hammering away at each other. The financial trolls are only interested in money so they will say anything to support their shorts or longs. The fanboys of both camps will say anything, spin anything, distort anything to make the other side look bad. It’s kind of sordid really.
Exactly what kind of management is Apple running when they can't take advantage of a market where investors are just throwing money at everything, no matter how risky? It's not that easy to turn one's company into a toxic investment. A company would have to do something very, very wrong. H-P must be one of the sickest tech companies around and yet it's share price doubled in 2013. It just seems like Apple took a leave of absence the entire year. Apple treats shareholders like dirt considering the amount of wealth the company has at its disposal for anything it could possibly dream of doing. I'm just hopeful Apple doesn't shaft shareholders like they did last year by handing over their entire mobile business to Samsung two years in a row. What a fiasco that was. It still hurts to think about it.
The fandroids have been pretty quiet of late with all this positive Apple news and soaring stock price.
They're probably out physically shopping since they're obviously not doing it online =D
I consider myself a fandroid, but I'm happy both for Apple's product success and for their investors' pockets.
Go figure.
Money was being thrown around like confetti by investors and Apple got next to nothing. Amazon, Google, Netflix and Priceline have gone into the stratosphere while Apple simply sat parked in the hangar without an engine or a pilot.
Exactly what kind of management is Apple running when they can't take advantage of a market where investors are just throwing money at everything, no matter how risky?
Ha ha! That's funny.
Oh wait, you're serious?!
Apple makes more profit than all those other companies - probably combined. That is Apple's sin. They quietly make great products & services which leads to mountains of profit. The market is not rational. If Apple had a P/E similar to those other companies, it would be priced in the thousands per share.
- Jasen.
I have no idea as to what your post is about. You write as though Apple deliberately ground down the price of their stock.
Groan.
Another incoherent rant from the Constable. He's still smarting from feeling like a fool for having bought in at $700.
Twitter - $22.6b
Yahoo - $37.5b
Facebook - $114b
Amazon - $180b
Microsoft - $318b
Google - $354b
Apple - $500b
... It's hard for me to fathom how a company like Apple that has a huge mountain of cash reserve can't create some sort of an additional revenue stream and simply allows shareholders to be bashed in their heads while the entire stock market is reaching record heights and every other tech company is making out like a bandit...
Only the SPECULATORS were getting bashed ... INVESTORS have been doing quite well via Apple... I have shares purchased for $60 and they did just fine in 2013.
Even the majority that were purchased at $130 have been "up" for years now ... AND generating dividends (recently).
After 6 days, she was unable to phone while in Germany for a business trip.
After 14 days, the battery was draining in less than 5 hours with very light usage (phone
calls only).
After 17 days, the phone stopped functioning : no phone call, no wifi, nothing.
Impossible to make it functional again. I filed a complaint with (professional) seller who pretended to fix the phone without giving any deadline for this. So Paypal refunded us.
I had two iPhone 3 from 2008, still perfectly functional until last month when I gave one to a monk and another to an elderly couple.
I replaced the Scamsung with an iPhone 5C. Gorgeous piece of phone.
Normally you would compare the price to the closing price last year to tell whether the price is in "positive territory" this year, just as you would compare today's price with yesterday's close. The closing price on Dec.31 2012 was 532.17 so Apple broke into positive territory a few days ago.
Icahnn, is that you? If so. Go away.
damn. I guess there's no "google store" at the mall where you could take it to have someone diagnose these issues...
in person...
for free...
even if you didn't buy it there...
ecosystems matter. infrastructure does too.
you know, stuff that costs money.
stuff that benefits customers at the short term expense of shareholders.
stuff that benefits everyone over the long term, i.e., not necessarily this quarter
things that make you go "hmmm"...
damn. I guess there's no "google store" at the mall where you could take it to have someone diagnose these issues...
in person...
for free...
even if you didn't buy it there...
ecosystems matter. infrastructure does too.
you know, stuff that costs money.
stuff that benefits customers at the short term expense of shareholders.
stuff that benefits everyone over the long term, i.e., not necessarily this quarter
things that make you go "hmmm"...
First and last time ever I'm being a customer for Scamsung. I also discovered their ridiculously complicated menu,
respective to clarity of IOS7.
Lilke a Nikocanon to a Leica.