Apple to buy back $100 billion in stock, raise dividend by 4%

AppleInsider

It is a tumultuous time for Apple investors, but some good news came from Apple's earnings on Thursday as stock buybacks continue unabated at $100 billion, and dividends are rising to $0.26 per share.

Apple's $100 billion in buybacks arrive at a good time in the market

While these numbers may seem significant given the current uncertainty provided by extreme tariffs, they're in line with what Apple announced in May 2024. That year-ago buyback was set at $110 billion and also had a 4% raise in dividends.

An announcement made live on CNBC with information provided by Apple revealed the buyback program. It is set at $100 billion this time around.

Apple stocks are a great buy at the moment due to being well below their December peak of $259. Stocks were tanked after "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced, and while they've bounced back slightly due to pauses and exemptions, they haven't returned to anywhere near their expected values.

So, Apple will benefit from buying back stock at a lower price than it may have been expecting at the start of the year. The company is also raising dividends by 4%, bringing payments to $0.25 per share.

The Q2 results showed Apple performed decently, beating Wall Street, but it didn't break its 2022 record. Apple earned $95.4 billion in revenue for Q2 2025.



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mpantone

The dividend increase was a penny per share, from $0.24 to $0.25. This is basically just to match inflation without making the dividend a fraction of a penny.

As we have discussed time and time before, Apple mostly issues a dividend so its stock can be included in certain pension plans, retirement funds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc. that require component companies to issue some sort of dividend as income. Apple really doesn't think consumer Joe Investor is going to invest that dividend better than they (Apple) can do it. And for 99.9% of retail AAPL shareholders, they are probably right.

mark fearing

Stock buy backs were rightly illegal up until the old nut Reagan made them okay. It is stock manipulation on the way into and out of the process. Here's hoping some day rational thought will prevail again since it did at one time.

sitime

AppleInsider said:

The company is also raising dividends by 4%, bringing payments to $0.25 per share.

Apple raised dividend to $0.26 (up from the previous $0.25).

ramanpfaff

Saw this one coming. A lovely penny. It won't change for the next three years (one penny every year). Then the big two penny year. Can't wait for 2028!

davidw

mark fearing said:

Stock buy backs were rightly illegal up until the old nut Reagan made them okay. It is stock manipulation on the way into and out of the process. Here's hoping some day rational thought will prevail again since it did at one time.

Buy backs are not "stock manipulation". The reason why buy backs were illegal before 1981 was because a company doing buy backs could easily manipulate the stock price, when doing their buy backs. Which is why the SEC came up with Rule 10b-18 in 1981. Rule 10b-18 set up some grounds rules on how buy backs must be done, so to limit the ability for companies to manipulate stock prices with their buy back trades. Rule 10b-18 is the reason why buy backs are no longer illegal as far as "stock manipulation" is concern.

A company stock gong up after they announce a $100M buy back because of investors that likes the idea of buy backs and buying more shares, that is not "stock manipulation". That is no different than if a company announced that they will buy out an innovative company for $100M and investors liking that idea, driving the price up by buying more shares. It would be a form of "stock manipulation" if the company did not go through with the buy back, after announcing a $100M buy back.

The reason why the SEC made buy backs illegal before 1981 was because a company would have been able to easily affect (manipulate) their stock prices during the trading day, by buying back some shares at every dip. Thus preventing the stock price from dropping any further. Or bidding up the price by asking above independent market prices and then buying back at that higher price. And they can do this with every buy back trade they make. But Rule 10b-18 changed all that. With buy backs, a company can only go through 1 broker and all the shares purchased back can not be higher than the highest independent bid. Plus there's a limit to how many shares they can buy back per trading day and trades can not be done toward the beginning or end of the trading day, where share prices are most affected by a large purchase. After market trades can not be higher than the day closing price.

https://www.mayerbrown.com/-/media/files/perspectives-events/publications/2020/11/what_s_the_deal_10b18.pdf

Now Rule 10b-18 only protects a company from being accused of "stock manipulation", so long as the buy back followed all the rules. There can be other irregularities with the buy backs that the SEC can look into, but "stock manipulation will not be one of them. Insider trading would be one of the common "irregularities". Using government tax relief funds for buybacks, incurring debt to fund buy backs and timing buybacks to align with executives selling vested shares, are others. But none of these constitute "stock manipulation" under SEC trading laws.

Stock buy backs are one of the best ways for  publicly traded companies to return excess profits back to its rightful owners ..... its shareholders.

edited May 3

discountopinion

I would have preferred a much stronger increase in dividends than stock buybacks as Apple has burned 400+ billion on reducing outstanding shares with just 12%. 

Likely their buyback program does provide some minor price support during dips and they can now scoop up a lot more shares at a discount.

I am wondering if they could have deployed a couple of 100 billion of their capital towards AI back in the day and avoided the Siri travesty and lagging behind on AI in general.

Feels like they thought that their existing model would go on in perpetuity.

danox

discountopinion said:

I would have preferred a much stronger increase in dividends than stock buybacks as Apple has burned 400+ billion on reducing outstanding shares with just 12%. 

Likely their buyback program does provide some minor price support during dips and they can now scoop up a lot more shares at a discount.

I am wondering if they could have deployed a couple of 100 billion of their capital towards AI back in the day and avoided the Siri travesty and lagging behind on AI in general.

Feels like they thought that their existing model would go on in perpetuity.

Siri can be fixed by simply phoning home to super computers for every request, Google, Microsoft and Meta love that solution (Robbie, the robot) because they get to collect as much information on the in user as possible Apple with Apple Intelligence was going down a different path, the path where everything would be done on your device (on the edge) that takes longer to do particularly when you’re also working on the Apple Silicon hardware at the same time as a vertical computer company…..