mpantone

GetSchwifty86 said:

Does this mean Spotify et al's pricing is going to drop by 30%?

/s

I see you are being sarcastic however the real answer is that it is up to the individual developer to decide whether or not there should be any adjustment to pricing. Some apps may actually get cheaper, other apps will likely stay the same (with the developer pocketing more instead of sharing with Apple).

Note that Spotify's latest iOS app (updated this morning) now offers an in-app hyperlink to Spotify's website where one can purchase Spotify Premium. That hyperlink did not exist yesterday, just some passive-aggressive language.

Undoubtedly this will not be the last developer who makes this change to their app. You will have to examine each and every one and compare before and after pricing to see if there has been any price reduction.

I do know that some Mac app developers have differentiated pricing between Mac App Store downloads and direct downloads from the company website. It seems likely that some iPhone app developers will take advantage of these new payment policies and pricing options.

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.

melgross said:

I’m still ticked at Apple’s indifference to direct shareholder benefits. Seriously, a 4% increase in dividend payments when they declare another massive $100 billion in buybacks? It should have been at least a 10% increase and they could have taken a few billion off the buybacks and nobody would have noticed. I’d also rather see them begin to pay off the $132 billion in debt instead of constantly increasing it in order to pay for buybacks. This is not good, folks.

Apple doesn't think that dividends provide the best ROI for shareholders. The only reason they issue a dividend is to qualify for pension plans, mutual funds, and ETFs that require component companies to issue dividends. I'm not convinced that an extra dime per share is really going to change any investor's life.

It's pretty clear they just increase the dividend to match inflation, that's it.

Apple thinks that they can invest the money better themselves through acquisitions, stock buybacks or strategic expenditures (like prepaying TSMC *cash* for access to cutting edge nodes and wafers). And you know for 99.9% of retail AAPL shareholders Apple is probably right. 

Part of the reason why they sell bonds is because of the tax implications of repatriating cash from overseas operations. They still seem to be waiting for an opportune moment. At this point, they probably think it's still cheaper to use someone else's cash instead of their own.

If you really want to stick your money somewhere else, sell off some of your AAPL and diversify. That's a good idea anyhow. Warren Buffett does it and he doesn't throw temper tantrums about paltry AAPL dividends. And your due diligence should have uncovered that AAPL doesn't pay out handsome dividends before you invested. It takes like 3-4 seconds to figure out Forward Dividend & Yield at Yahoo Finance for any company publicly traded on American stock exchanges.

If you want a stock that pays out big dividends, go invest in a company like AT&T (NYSE:T) which has zero vision and innovates poorly.

Anyhow, feel free to bring up your concerns at next year's annual shareholder meeting.

Congress is not involved in the creation of these recent tariffs. This round of increases is strictly an executive branch action. Your representative or senator did not vote Yes or No on these tariffs. Even Congress understands that a tumbling dollar is not beneficial to the USA in the long run.

Note that the same can pretty much be said most other places. If the US applies a higher tariff on Country A's goods, Country A's electorate doesn't head to the polls to vote whether or not their country should react with a similar tariff on US goods. Nope, their leader typically applies the tariff without voter approval.

Mike Wuerthele said:

sdw2001 said:

Oh, look, calling his tariffs “nonsensical” and using scare quotes.  Shocker.

That's because they literally are nonsensical.

They aren't based on anything, they aren't reciprocal by any definition of the word, and the math that they used to derive them makes no sense at all.

And, worst of all, they injure US consumers more than they do anything at all to foreign interests.

They are called reciprocal because when one country applies a tariff to another, in almost all cases, that other country will apply the same tariff. So if Country A levies a 15% tariff on Country B's imports, Country B reciprocates with a 15% tariff on Country A's imports.

There's nothing new about reciprocity between governments. Hell, even interstate wine shipments are governed by reciprocal shipping laws. California wineries can ship directly to consumers in most other states because those states' wineries can do the same and direct ship wine to California consumers.

As for the tariff calculation, there is a formula. It's based on trade balance between imports and exports to a country.

For example, the US imports $136B in products, yet only exports $13 so the trade imbalance is -$123B which equates to 90% (123 divided by 136). The Trump tariff formula just halves that trade balance percentage: 90% / 2 = 45%. So the Trump tariff on Vietnam is 46%.

Thailand: $63B imports, $17B exports, balance -$46B, 72% imbalance pct. Tariff is thus 36%, half of that 72%.

So there is some rudimentary calculation, very crude and basic. Economists don't think it will actually provide any advantage for the US economy. In that sense, yes they are nonsense but the calculation isn't random. It's based on something even if the reasoning for it is defective.

But for sure, US consumers will be paying more for things next year than this year.

The damage to the US dollar's reputation as a reserve currency is by far the more grave effect of these tariffs. Even if all the tariffs were rolled back to more reasonable levels, there's still far less trust by foreign investors in the US dollar and Treasury notes. There has been a significant swing into gold and European bonds, something that will not swing back for years; it will likely happen when a new administration takes over and instills more trust in foreign investors. And let's face it, the rest of the world knows that the current White House administration is very, uh, capricious. There's no stability at all with the current administration, things can be flipped at any given hour. Not being able to plan ahead for the long term will slam the brakes on a lot of dealings with the USA.

The Pegatron CEO is probably right that American consumers will see tightening availability for some items but not all. There's a dropoff in container ship arrivals in the Port of Los Angeles for the upcoming weeks indicating fewer imports from Southeast Asia. A week ago I read some article reporting that Christmas decoration factories in China were idle and some companies hadn't received a single wholesale order from the US during what should be their busiest time for wholesale orders.

Even the service industry (travel, hospitality) is seeing a dropoff in bookings for this summer, including overseas visitors, so growth may come to a full halt. It won't happen overnight but for sure we will be looking at a vastly different economic climate a year from now.